University of Tennessee Introduces Ticket Price Hike to Fund Player ‘Talent Fee’

The University of Tennessee plans to increase ticket prices for their football games next year with an additional “talent fee” to pay players more.

Fans of the Tennessee Volunteers will see tickets increase by an average of 14.5% in 2025 at Neyland Stadium — made up of an organic 4.5% rise in addition to a 10% “talent fee.” Already, the team’s tickets doubled from $10 to $25 earlier this year. This new fee is believed to be a first of its kind and follows the NCAA’s new revenue-sharing plan, which is also set to kick-off next year. The settlement, if approved, will see schools share up to $22 million of their annual revenue with athletes.

The university is estimating that the added costs will add up to over $30 million per year. UT athletic director Danny White told fans that the fees are a part of ” an extensive plan to continue our dominance in college athletics and building something like never seen before,” noting “we want to be a leader in college sports” and “that means we want to be a leader in revenue sharing.”

“It’s really just a $30m-plus math problem,” White said. “We’re not just offloading it to our fans. We are asking them to help us with a portion of it.”

The Tennessee Volunteers, 9th in the SEC, are set to take-on Oklahoma University on September 21, followed by Arkansas and Florida in October. The team holds a combined record of 866-414-53, taking the rank of fourteenth on the all-time win list for NCAA football programs.