KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — In what is believed to be the first arrangement of its kind, Tennessee fans for all sports will be charged a 10% “talent fee” on tickets to help pay athletes as part of the new revenue-sharing plan set to begin in 2025.
The university shared the news with football season-ticket holders via email Tuesday, which included an impassioned four-minute video of athletic director Danny White telling fans the talent fee and other strategies were “part of an extensive plan to continue our dominance in college athletics and build something like never seen before.”
In addition to the 10% increase on all ticket invoices — season tickets and single-game purchases — as well as donations for those seats, Tennessee will add an average increase of 4.5% on all football tickets.
“In this era of name, image and likeness (NIL), there has never been as close a connection between resources and competitive success,” said White, noting that Tennessee had captured the last three SEC All-Sports trophies. “We want to be a leader in college sports. That means we want to be a leader in revenue sharing.”
The NCAA revenue-sharing plan, scheduled to begin in the fall of 2025, is part of a settlement between the NCAA and power conferences in the House vs. NCAA case that would allow schools to share up to $22 million of their annual revenue with athletes. In preparing for those added costs, schools are becoming increasingly creative in how to raise money, and many college leaders believe the revenue-sharing model recently proposed is only the beginning with collective bargaining coming at some point.
In the most recent financial data available, the Tennessee football program turned a $75 million profit in 2023 — after $134.9 million in revenue and $59.1 million in expenses.
At most of the larger schools around the country, football is the engine that helps fund many of the other sports. The Vols have a streak of 15 consecutive sellouts at Neyland Stadium and led 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 all 70,500 of its season tickets, and White said there’s a waiting list of 15,000.
Tennessee is experiencing its best stretch of on-field success in all sports in decades. The baseball team won its first…
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