Tennessee
Comparing Tennessee’s Neyland Entertainment District to others in college sports
When the University of Tennessee opens the Neyland Entertainment District in 2028, it’ll be among the first colleges with an on-campus mixed-use sports entertainment development, but far from the last.
About a dozen universities are building entertainment districts with restaurants, retail, hotels, condos, conference centers and green spaces alongside their stadium or arena.
Iowa State’s CyTown and Wake Forest’s The Grounds will open in 2027. Kansas will open its Gateway District in 2028.
Other examples already exist. Arizona State’s Novus Place district connects Tempe Town Lake to its football stadium like UT envisions blending the Tennessee Riverfront into the Neyland Entertainment District. And Florida State’s College Town has become a year-round hub for students in addition to gamedays.
In the SEC, a few schools are at various stages of building or planning their own entertainment district as they watch Tennessee take the first steps in sort of an arms race involving public-private partnerships in this era of college sports.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey praised Tennessee, telling Knox News that the Neyland Entertainment District plans “seem quite well thought out and intentional.”
UT will begin work in July with the demolition of the G10 garage, the future site of its ambitious development.
Let’s look at other entertainment districts and how they’ll compare to Neyland Entertainment District.
How Neyland Entertainment District is proactive rather than reactive
Some schools are developing a sports entertainment district to solve a problem.
Florida State had a rundown neighborhood in Tallahassee between Doak Campbell Stadium and Donald L. Tucker Civic Center that fans avoided after dark on gamedays. The College Town district was completed on that site in 2019, transforming the area into a gameday hub with shops, sports bars, restaurants and a boutique hotel.
North Dakota State is developing an entertainment district next to the Fargodome with outdoor plazas featuring retractable roofs, inviting fans to spend money around the stadium during cold weather.
Similarly, mid-major schools are trying to give fans more reasons to attend games and hang around long after the stadium has closed.
South Florida has strong attendance for an American Conference program, but it wants to grow further. The USF Fletcher District, a $268 million development, is being built in Tampa with that in mind.
Opening in 2028, it will feature retail, restaurants, student apartments and a hotel with “an impressive view of USF’s new on-campus stadium set against the downtown skyline in the distance.”
Tennessee has made a similar pledge with a condo-hotel featuring a rooftop bar overlooking Neyland Stadium.
But the difference is that Tennessee doesn’t have a noticeable gameday problem. It touts among college football’s largest stadiums, highest attendance and best gameday atmospheres.
Critics say Tennessee is solving a problem that doesn’t exist. But UT leaders believe they are ahead of the competition.
“We are going to be pursuing public-private partnerships in almost everything we try to do going forward to move the university to the next level,” UT Chancellor Donde Plowman said. “This is one very bold and dramatic opportunity.”
Notably, many other universities are planning entertainment districts like UT, only a few years behind, and they include SEC schools.
These SEC schools are planning entertainment districts
Some SEC schools are landlocked, and others see their best opportunities off campus.
Oklahoma’s Rock Creek Entertainment District, a $1.1 billion development, is being built six miles from the Norman campus. It will be anchored by a new Sooners basketball and gymnastics arena, hoping to sustain better game attendance.
LSU wants to build a new basketball arena and entertainment district on its current golf course on campus in Baton Rouge. But it’s hit several snags, including a lawsuit challenging a proposed sales tax increase to build the development. That will likely stall LSU’s project for a few years.
But where there’s room, some SEC schools are trying to wedge an entertainment district alongside their stadium or arena. UT’s entertainment district will be built between Neyland Stadium and Food City Center.
Ole Miss will break ground on a 25-acre entertainment district surrounding Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford as early as 2027, putting it about a year behind Tennessee. Like the Neyland Entertainment District, the Ole Miss version will include a condo-hotel, restaurants, retail and a team store.
South Carolina is renovating Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, but an adjacent entertainment district is still in the developmental stage. The university owns nearly 900 acres next to the stadium, but almost all of it is in a flood zone. Working through that problem could delay the district for a few years.
Kentucky is finalizing its plans for a Kroger Field entertainment district in Lexington. The initial design called for most of the completion in 2027, but that appears unlikely because the project hasn’t broken ground yet.
First, UK must demolish Bluegrass Community and Technical College at the site of the future entertainment district.
Has Tennessee solved problems that other schools face?
Tennessee announced the Neyland Entertainment District in 2023, and brainstorming on the project began long before that. UT has already solved many of the problems that other schools are encountering.
LSU is amid a funding fight over its proposed entertainment district. But UT Chief Financial Officer David Miller said Tennessee will rake in revenue while bearing no financial risk in the $280 million Neyland project.
UT will finance an estimated $83 million to build the new G10 garage through Tennessee State School Bonds, which is typical for parking garages on campus. And the university will collect parking revenue.
Otherwise, UT will put no money into the project and act as landlord. The developer will pay UT an annual base rent of $1.5 million plus between 3-5% of gross revenue above $25 million annually from the condo-hotel and entertainment space in separate payments.
South Carolina would lose almost seven acres of parking to build its entertainment district, so it must account for that complication. But Tennessee plans to build the Neyland Entertainment District vertically and add parking spaces in a new G10 garage.
Fan frustration comes with every entertainment district
But all these entertainment districts come with growing pains that fans must endure.
Frustrated Wake Forest fans have dealt with gameday traffic and parking problems during the construction of a $250 million entertainment district called The Grounds. And it’s still a year away from completion.
Tennessee fans have already voiced their concerns about potential parking issues when the G10 garage is unavailable in the 2026 football season.
Kansas will have limited capacity for home football games in 2026 because one side of its stadium in Lawrence is a construction zone, including the adjacent entertainment district. The restaurants, hotel and parking garage won’t be complete until 2028, and some Jayhawk fans wonder if it’s worth the headache.
A quick search of fan message boards where these entertainment districts are planned reveals common complaints.
Is the university prioritizing money over academics? Will the traditional campus vibe be replaced by a strip mall? Does a boutique hotel cater to elite donors over common fans?
Those questions are being asked across numerous college fan bases, and perhaps they’ll be answered. But it appears entertainment districts are here to stay in college sports.
Tennessee will be among the first but certainly not the last.
Adam Sparks is the Tennessee football beat reporter. Email adam.sparks@knoxnews.com. X, formerly known as Twitter@AdamSparks. Support strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe.
Get the latest news and insight on SEC football by subscribing to the SEC Unfiltered newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox.
BELL BUCKLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — The poet laureate of Tennessee has just died. Margaret Britton Vaughn was 87-years-old. Friends knew Vaughn as hilarious, talented, and deeply unique.
Visiting Bell Buckle, Tennessee over the years, I’ve just found this little place has so many artists. A proud addition to that is Vaughn.
“When Maggi was your friend, you knew you had a friend,” said longtime friend Annie Rooney. “It wasn’t if you’re rich or poor or have four matching tires on your car, she was your friend.”
Going way back, Vaughn was a songwriter for some country greats.
“Loretta Lynn, yes!” said friend Carla Webb.
To understand the uniqueness of Vaughn, listen to this story.
“Maggi says, ‘honey, you wanna go to the movies with me?’” friend Billy Phillips remembered.
Phillips was nine when he and Vaughn became friends and took a trip to the Carpi Theatre in Shelbyville.
“When I get into the car, there were 200 empty boxes of chocolate bunny rabbits!” Phillips laughed.
“She loved chocolate,” Rooney agreed.
“It couldn’t be hollow milk chocolate,” Phillips continued. “It had to be solid milk chocolate.”
That was just one of many loves. One of the times I got to talk to Vaughn was in 2023. She was selling eclectic things she’d collected. They included a typewriter built out of clothes hangers and a lamp made of forks and spoons.
“Maggi had a lot of stuff!” Phillips said.
She’d call around to antique shops.
“Got anything that looks like me, honey?” Rooney laughed, remembering Vaughn’s calls.
Talking to Vaughn, you came to understand something. She had a deep appreciation for the art and the artist who made it. That’s something that sprang from Vaughn being an artist herself.
“My mother looked down and said, ‘are you sure you don’t want to be a nurse?’” Vaughn told me in 2023. “I said, ‘no, momma. I wanna be a songwriter and a poet.’ People say, ‘Maggi, these books. You’ve written my life.’”
“Maggi had front porch books, not coffee table books,” Webb said.
“She was a poet of the people,” Rooney continued.
Vaughn took on prejudice in her work. She also wrote about all things she loved.
“She covered rural life, southern things,” Phillips said.
That writing carried her to become the poet laureate of Tennessee in 1995. The next year, she wrote Tennessee’s bicentennial poem.
“I gave her her last kiss the other day,” Webb said.
“I’m on the verge of tears,” Phillips added. “This will be a real gut punch.”
Asking around town, people seemed to agree on their favorite of Vaughn’s works.
“Is That You Mama?” Phillips said, naming one of Vaughn’s poems.
Webb read me an excerpt of the poem. It ended with these lines;
“Well, mama, I’m okay now. You tell the Lord I said hi. Was that you, mama, that just kissed me bye?”
“Maggi was a true original, and Bell Buckle was proud to call her our own,” Phillips said.
Do you have a positive, good news story? You can email me at forrest.sanders@newschannel5.com.
Tenn. seniors make a splash on a giant slip-and-slide
A slip-and-slide for seniors?! Who knew it could stir laughter and tears. Photojournalist Angie Dones captures a story filled with so much joy and one that will tug at your heartstrings.
– Carrie Sharp
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — As millions of people are expected to travel through Tennessee to celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary, the Tennessee Department of Transportation is suspending all construction-related lane closures on interstates and state routes.
The suspension will begin at noon on Thursday, July 2, through 6:00 a.m. on Monday, July 6. Workers may still be on-site during the suspension, and reduced speed limits in work zones will remain in effect. TDOT added that drivers could still be impacted by some long-term lane closures for ongoing construction projects. Drivers are still urged to use caution.
“With so many people driving on and around the Fourth of July, we want to do all we can to ensure they reach their destinations safely and without delays,” said TDOT Commissioner Will Reid, P.E. “We are suspending lane closures during this busy holiday travel time. Be mindful that our HELP Trucks will be on patrol in urban and rural areas and drivers must obey the law by moving over and slowing down for all emergency vehicles on the side of the road.”
AAA predicts more than 1.6 million Tennesseans will travel at least 50 miles from home for the Independence Day between Saturday, June 27, and Sunday, July 5. The company added that this will set a record for Fourth of July travel in Tennessee.
“For many families, traveling for Independence Day isn’t just a trip; it’s a tradition,” said Debbie Haas, Vice President of Travel for AAA – The Auto Club Group. “Vacations are one category where consumers are still willing to spend, even if that means cutting back on something else. With an extended holiday travel period, we expect busy roads, steady demand for flights, and continued interest in cruises across many parts of the country.”
For those looking to travel over the weekend, join 6 News anchor Bo Williams for our Upcoming Road Work stream on WATE6+ at 2:30 p.m. on Fridays. He will break down traffic conditions, construction projects and events that are expected to impact drivers in East Tennessee over the weekend.
-
Miami, FL5 minutes agoEvery Dolphins head coach’s start in Miami from worst to best
-
Boston, MA12 minutes agoHistorian clears up one of the biggest myths about the Boston Tea Party
-
Denver, CO15 minutes ago
Nemanja Jokic, the older brother of\u00a0Denver …
-
Seattle, WA20 minutes ago3 Seahawks Rookies Who Must Step Up Right Away
-
San Diego, CA27 minutes agoAdobe Falls: The elusive waterfall that briefly returns after San Diego rains
-
Milwaukee, WI30 minutes agoSteve Czaban returns with new home in Milwaukee sports-talk radio
-
Atlanta, GA35 minutes agoGolestan brings a taste of Persian home cooking to Peachtree Corners – Atlanta Magazine
-
Minneapolis, MN42 minutes agoMinneapolis City Council abandons tax hike near George Floyd Square, revises development plan
