Fanbogs - College Football Weblogs

August 26, 2005

$20 Million College Football Game?

Bruton Smith, the CEO of Speedway Motorsports says he has offered the University of Tennessee and Virginia Tech $20 million each to play a football game at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Incredible. The track holds something like 170,000 people, but I don't know how they would configure it for football. But, does that even matter? $20 million? Twenty million dollars! For just one game?

It's mind-boggling. I don't know how the teams could turn that down.

Posted by David Irwin

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Comments:

  1. schmed said:

    posted on August 26, 2005 10:40 AM — 208.248.231.58 — link — abuse?



    Wow is right - assuming it's a regularly scheduled game and nothing resembling a "playoff". But wouldn't the conferences get a cut? Any others who'll think their fingers need to be in that pie?

    Alternate Comment: Easy, they simply tell Mr. Smith the NCAA said no, since their Privacy Policy forbids them to reveal the information required to register at the Knoxville newspaper's website and they could read the terms of the offer.

  2. Fanblogs Author Kevin Donahue said:

    posted on August 26, 2005 11:23 AM — link — abuse?



    Uh-huh. Sounds like a PR stunt from a man known for PR stunts.

    That said, not his first crack at bringing UT to the Bristol track. The Vols keep saying no.

    Tennessee makes $3.25 million per game. I can't imagine VaTech making that, based on their overall football revenues. So.....this would be more.

  3. DRB said:

    posted on August 28, 2005 10:20 PM — 68.218.252.224 — link — abuse?



    There is no way any college in America could turn down that type of money. A Athletic Department budget for a school like FSU is in the 40 Million Range that game alone would finance half of that budget which would give the athletic program quite a surplus to fund the university.

  4. DRB said:

    posted on August 28, 2005 10:20 PM — 68.218.252.224 — link — abuse?



    There is no way any college in America could turn down that type of money. A Athletic Department budget for a school like FSU is in the 40 Million Range that game alone would finance half of that budget which would give the athletic program quite a surplus to fund the university.

  5. Fanblogs Author Josh McClain said:

    posted on August 28, 2005 11:43 PM — 70.162.5.208 — link — abuse?



    Smith also owns Texas Motor Speedway, and has been making a hard pitch in recent years to get Texas and Oklahoma to move there from the Cotton Bowl. So this isn't the first time he's made noise about something like this.

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