Tennessee raised ticket prices by 10% to help pay athletes

Knoxville, Tenn. — In what is believed to be the first measure of its kind, Tennessee fans will be charged a 10% “talent fee” on tickets to all games to help pay athletes as part of a new revenue sharing plan set. will begin in 2025.

The university shared the news with football season-ticket holders via email on Tuesday, including an emotional four-minute video of athletic director Danny White telling fans that talent fees and other tactics are “part of a broader plan to maintain our dominance in college athletics. And something that creates Do what has never been seen before.”

In addition to a 10% increase on all ticket invoices — season tickets and single-game purchases — as well as donations for those seats, Tennessee will add an average 4.5% increase on all football tickets.

“In this era of name, image and likeness (NIL), wealth and competitive success have never been so closely linked,” White said, adding that Tennessee has captured the last three SEC All-Sports trophies. “We want to be the leader in college sports. That means we want to be the leader in revenue sharing.”

The NCAA revenue sharing plan, set to begin in the fall of 2025, is part of a settlement between the NCAA and the power conference in the House v. NCAA case that allows schools to share up to $22 million of their annual revenue with athletes. . To prepare for these additional costs, schools are becoming increasingly creative about how to raise money, and many college leaders believe the recently proposed revenue sharing model is just the beginning of collective bargaining at some point.

In the most recent financial data available, the Tennessee football program is projected to turn a $75 million profit in 2023 — after $134.9 million in revenue and $59.1 million in expenses.

At most large schools in the country, football is the engine that helps fund many other sports. The Vols have 15 consecutive sellout streaks at Neyland Stadium and lead the SEC in total home attendance in 2023 with 713,405 fans — an average of 101,915 per game. For two straight years, Tennessee has sold 70,500 of its season tickets, and White said there is a waiting list of 15,000.

Tennessee is experiencing its best on-field success in decades. The baseball team won its first national championship in June and Tennessee became the first school in SEC history to win a conference championship in men’s basketball, baseball and softball in the same year. The men’s basketball team made its second Elite Eight appearance in school history in March, and the football team is ranked No. 6 this week in the AP Poll.

“White will want a winner, and our teams have responded in big and bold ways,” White told fans in the video. “… we started this thing.”

Instead of simply raising ticket prices, school officials said they want to be clear and transparent about why the increase is happening and where the money is going, prompting White to film the video. Ticket renewals will begin on Thursday and run until the end of February. Tennessee is offering fans the chance to spread their payments over 10 months to help absorb the cost increase.

More than ever, Tennessee fans need to step up. In 2025, the cheapest season ticket for home football games — including tax, required contributions and talent fees — will cost $453.75 in the family section, which is in the upper deck. Student ticket prices doubled this season from $10 to $20 and will increase to $25 in 2025.

Adding additional scholarships to sports (football is going from 85 to 105), schools opting for the new revenue sharing plan will need about $30 million to cover the money going to athletes and the cost of additional scholarships.

The Tennessee Fund raised $139.7 million in 2023-24, the highest total in athletic department fundraising history. The university also announced in August that it had entered into a lucrative 20-year partnership with Knoxville-based Pilot to have the Pilot logo displayed on the Neyland Stadium playing field.

Tennessee has recently brought up a lot of administrators and coaches. White is now the nation’s highest-paid athletic director (among public universities) after his recent raise to $2.75 million per year, and his contract remains a six-year rolling contract that runs through July 2030. He could earn up to $600,000 more in incentives

Also, baseball coach Tony Vitello went to $3 million annually in August, making him the highest-paid baseball coach in the country.