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- Tennessee fans purchased a lot of booze during home games in 2021.
- However, no game saw greater sales than Lane Kiffin’s return to Neyland.
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In the second full season with alcohol sales at University of Tennessee sporting events, the Volunteers spent a small fortune on booze at football games. The largest single-game spike in booze sales, unsurprisingly, came when Lane Kiffin made his return to Knoxville.
Neyland Stadium, which offers beer and wine selections, seats 102,455. Over the course of eight home games, according to a public records request from the Knoxville News Sentinel, UT generated $2.67 million in alcohol sales during the 2021 season.
The revenue is split 50/50. Tennessee’s athletic department gets half, and the school’s stadium concessionaire gets half. That means that UT took home almost $1.34 million in booze sales during 2021.
That is nearly double what the school made in 2019, its first full season with alcohol sales. During that season, UT generated $1.46 million in total sales.
Of the eight games in 2021, one in particular generated more than 20% of the $2.67 million number. That game was against Ole Miss.
The Volunteers hosted the Rebels in mid-October. It marked the first time that Kiffin was back in Knoxville as a head coach since he abruptly left Tennessee for the same job at USC in 2010.
The game ended in utter chaos. Vols fans threw bottles, trash, mustard and golf balls onto the field in the fourth quarter and Kiffin made an impressive one-handed catch after having something thrown at him on his way out of the stadium.
At that point in the night, the fans had indulged in more than a few alcoholic beverages.
According to the university, Tennessee sold 47,890 alcoholic beverages during the Ole Miss game for $547,726 in revenue. Those numbers were the highest for a single game since the school started selling beer and wine at games.
Here is how sales broke down for the entirety of the season:
Opponent: Alcoholic drinks sold | Revenue
Bowling Green: 21,191 | $250,158
Pittsburgh: 28,676 | $333,358
Tennessee Tech: 18,754 | $219,698
South Carolina: 34,598 | $394,686
Ole Miss: 47,890 | $547,726
Georgia: 44,997 | $522,208
South Alabama: 14,224 | $169,110
Vanderbilt: 20,008 | $235,167
Totals: 230,338 | $2,672,111