Bollywood Economic Impact Report Released

And there it is: "Bollywood Oscars delivers $26.4 million impact."

The Bollywood Oscars — with its celebrity appearances, packs of screaming fans, a free concert for 8,000 and green carpet events — generated an economic impact of $26.4 million, close to original projections for the April 24-26 event.

Conveniently, an economic study was commissioned to prove a major event lived up to expectations.  Of course, you can make an economic study say anything you want...and Bollywood's big promises/expectations had to be tempered several times,

And for those of you keeping score at home, the Tampa Bay Times noted important disclaimers about the study (it failed to take into account economic displacement, for instance)...a vast improvement from its 2013 debrief of the bloated RNC economic impact study.

For what its worth, Bollywood's supposed $26.4 million economic impact ($19.9 million in direct spending) didn't displace nearly as much economy as the RNC did.  And heck, Tampa got some good exposure and "heads in beds" at a reasonable cost  ($1 million local, $700k state).

As my colleague Mike Deeson says, big events like these are "loss leaders" in helping a city like Tampa break into the world spotlight.