Tennessee football‘s season opening game against Virginia is sold out, the Nashville Sports Council announced Tuesday.
The No. 10 Vols will play Virginia on Saturday (11 a.m. CT/noon ET, ABC) at Nissan Stadium in Nashville.
“We are thrilled to announce this Saturday’s game is officially sold out,” Nashville Sports Council President/CEO Scott Ramsey said in a news release. “We are excited to welcome the tens of thousands of fans to Nissan Stadium for what promises to be an exciting and memorable matchup between these two outstanding programs.”
It will be Tennessee’s third regular season nonconference game at Nissan Stadium. It beat Wyoming there in 2002 and Bowling Green in 2015. The Vols also lost to Purdue in the 2021 Music City Bowl at Nissan Stadium, which drew a crowd of 69,489, the largest in the bowl’s history.
Virginia will play at Nissan Stadium for the first time since beating Minnesota in the 2005 Music City Bowl.
Here’s who gets the ticket revenue
UT was scheduled to play at BYU for the 2023 opener, but it is buying out that contract.
According to the memorandum of understanding, the first $2 million in net ticket revenue from the game at Nissan Stadium will be designated as UT’s buyout to the BYU contract.
The next $500,000 will go to Music City Bowl and Nashville Sports Council to pay for the use of Nissan Stadium and other game management expenses.
The next $1.5 million will go to Virginia, and the $1.5 million after that to UT. Any remaining net ticket revenue will be shared 80% by UT and 20% by the Nashville Sports Council.
Adam Sparks is the Tennessee football beat reporter. Email adam.sparks@knoxnews.com. 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.
