Insert Foot on Ticketmaster and Taylor Swift.

I had a seemingly insane professor at San Francisco State back in the mid-’90s who had just enough hair on his head to look like someone set off a firecracker on his scalp. He was probably in his 80s then, meaning he’s likely no longer alive to worry about Taylor Swift tickets.

He wore a vest and a bow tie and glasses and prophesied the coming doom of human civilization for 90 minutes at a time. It was a political science class, and everyone thought we’d be studying why Bill Clinton jogged 5 miles to eat McDonald’s. Instead, we sat with this cult leader for four months, having one idea pounded into our heads, and it’s stuck with me ever since: Human overpopulation is the root cause of every problem on planet Earth.

Which brings me to Taylor Swift, of whom there’s only one (if there were more, our problem would be solved. Chazillions of Americans were upset this week over not getting tickets for her upcoming “The Eras Tour” in a bunch of sports stadiums built on a model that still exists from half a century ago—back when baseball was still popular, and seeing sports in person was affordable.

The Earth’s population just hit 8 billion last week, the news of which, if my old professor isn’t already dead, certainly made him explode. When he was scaring his students in 1995, there were about 5.7 billion humans. In 2022, that 5.7 billion represents how many people tried to get Taylor Swift tickets and couldn’t, prompting angst the likes of which this nation hasn’t seen since “The Sopranos” ended with no murder set to a Journey song.

Ticketmaster said more than 2 million tickets were sold for the 52-date 2023 tour on Tuesday alone. The company created its “verified fan” platform in 2017 to help handle situations of insane ticket demand by giving them priority. Then 3.5 million people pre-registered. They all started trying to buy tickets, and the system became overwhelmed.

That’s true. It actually broke down crying.

Swift’s “The Eras Tour,” for new album Midnights and the last few that she hasn’t had a chance to tour, kicks off in Glendale, Arizona on March 17, 2023 and wraps up in Los Angeles on August 9, 2023, hitting 52 stadiums across the U.S.

To make you feel sorry for them, Ticketmaster said Thursday, “Based on the volume of traffic to our site, Taylor would need to perform over 900 stadium shows. … That’s a stadium show every single night for the next 2.5 years.”

Let’s say a stadium designed in the 1960s and redesigned in the ’90s can hold 50,000 people for a concert, and an arena can hold 20,000. Yes, some are twice as big, but I don’t understand countries that pay to watch soccer.

In the 1960s, the world population was less than half of what it is now (we hit 4 billion in 1974). When artists were selling out these stadiums in the ’70s, we were dealing with half as many Taylor Swift fans (don’t argue—that’s just math).

Even with higher-capacity stadiums built since then, obviously they can only be so big until people can’t see the stage. Clearly, my exploding teacher and I would argue the concert industry can’t meet demand because there’s too many people on the planet. Or, the record industry isn’t interested in giving us a lot of choices.

There are a million reasons why bands in their 50s, 60s and 70s still sell out arenas, especially in the wealthy Bay Area. Two generations on the far side of 50 now have grown up with rock and roll being the cultural norm. People are also living longer and have rightfully decided not to act old like their grandparents.

But nobody was really thinking about how many kids in the ’70s and ’80s would grow up, multiply and drag their own kids to mid-week old fogey concerts. Some artists, as Phil Collins fans can tell you, are sitting down on stage because they can’t stand up that long.

So what do we do with Taylor Swift, short of having her play three shows a day? What are the options to satisfy Swifties? Taylor Swift robots on multiple tours? Holograms? Stadiums with half-million capacities? Does she need her own floating spaceship/stadium that turns upside down so whole cities can watch? A ticket company better organized and less evil than Ticketmaster and Live Nation?

That part would help, of course. The greed-driven monopolies in the music (and ticket) business should make pro sports owners blush.

Humans crave connection, and the way we connect in an increasingly divided world is through music, sports and cat videos.

The NBA has started doing something interesting, which is also greed-driven, but at least fans can show up and feel like they’re part of the experience. Some newer arenas have massive plaza spaces just outside the arena, where thousands of outsold fans can gather and watch the game on massive Nebraska-sized video screens (and pay to park and buy food and team merchandise and still spend way too much like fans on the inside).

Because that’s all people want—a chance to share the love, be it for Taylor Swift or the Golden State Warriors. On one hand, it seems pretty awful to profit at all off fans who can’t even get inside. But people go because they covet that connection with the like-minded.

Or maybe we need stadiums and arenas specifically designed for concerts, up the capacity and hope musicians start to get taller. Do more to magnify the action on stage. Perhaps have satellite gatherings with video feeds giving fans more details and give everyone some merch.

Or perhaps the music industry could diversify, get behind more than a dozen proven earners and give fans more opportunities to find new acts to worship with their limited incomes. You know, like back when all those stadiums and arenas were first designed.

Follow music critic Tony Hicks at Twitter.com/TonyBaloney1967.