Neyland Entertainment District, comparing Tennessee project to others

When the University of Tennessee opens the Neyland Entertainment District in 2028, it’ll be among the first colleges with an on-campus mixed-use sports entertainment development, but far from the last.

About a dozen universities are building entertainment districts with restaurants, retail, hotels, condos, conference centers and green spaces alongside their stadium or arena.

Iowa State’s CyTown and Wake Forest’s The Grounds will open in 2027. Kansas will open its Gateway District in 2028.

Other examples already exist. Arizona State’s Novus Place district connects Tempe Town Lake to its football stadium like UT envisions blending the Tennessee Riverfront into the Neyland Entertainment District. And Florida State’s College Town has become a year-round hub for students in addition to gamedays.

In the SEC, a few schools are at various stages of building or planning their own entertainment district as they watch Tennessee take the first steps in sort of an arms race involving public-private partnerships in this era of college sports.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey praised Tennessee, telling Knox News that the Neyland Entertainment District plans “seem quite well thought out and intentional.”

UT will begin work in July with the demolition of the G10 garage, the future site of its ambitious development.

Let’s look at other entertainment districts and how they’ll compare to Neyland Entertainment District.

How Neyland Entertainment District is proactive rather than reactive

Some schools are developing a sports entertainment district to solve a problem.

Florida State had a rundown neighborhood in Tallahassee between Doak Campbell Stadium and Donald L. Tucker Civic Center that fans avoided after dark on gamedays. The College Town district was completed on that site in 2019, transforming the area into a gameday hub with shops, sports bars, restaurants and a boutique hotel.

North Dakota State is developing an entertainment district next to the Fargodome with outdoor plazas featuring retractable roofs, inviting fans to spend money around the stadium during cold weather.

Similarly, mid-major schools are trying to give fans more reasons to attend games and hang around long after the stadium has closed.

South Florida has strong attendance for an American Conference program, but it wants to grow further. The USF Fletcher District, a $268 million development, is being built in Tampa with that in mind.

Opening in 2028, it will feature retail, restaurants, student apartments and a hotel with “an impressive view of USF’s new on-campus stadium set against the downtown skyline in the distance.”

Tennessee has made a similar pledge with a condo-hotel featuring a rooftop bar overlooking Neyland Stadium.

But the difference is that Tennessee doesn’t have a noticeable gameday problem. It touts among college football’s largest stadiums, highest attendance and best gameday atmospheres.

Critics say Tennessee is solving a problem that doesn’t exist. But UT leaders believe they are ahead of the competition.

“We are going to be pursuing public-private partnerships in almost everything we try to do going forward to move the university to the next level,” UT Chancellor Donde Plowman said. “This is one very bold and dramatic opportunity.”

Notably, many other universities are planning entertainment districts like UT, only a few years behind, and they include SEC schools.

These SEC schools are planning entertainment districts

Some SEC schools are landlocked, and others see their best opportunities off campus.

Oklahoma’s Rock Creek Entertainment District, a $1.1 billion development, is being built six miles from the Norman campus. It will be anchored by a new Sooners basketball and gymnastics arena, hoping to sustain better game attendance.

LSU wants to build a new basketball arena and entertainment district on its current golf course on campus in Baton Rouge. But it’s hit several snags, including a lawsuit challenging a proposed sales tax increase to build the development. That will likely stall LSU’s project for a few years.

But where there’s room, some SEC schools are trying to wedge an entertainment district alongside their stadium or arena. UT’s entertainment district will be built between Neyland Stadium and Food City Center.

Ole Miss will break ground on a 25-acre entertainment district surrounding Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford as early as 2027, putting it about a year behind Tennessee. Like the Neyland Entertainment District, the Ole Miss version will include a condo-hotel, restaurants, retail and a team store.

South Carolina is renovating Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, but an adjacent entertainment district is still in the developmental stage. The university owns nearly 900 acres next to the stadium, but almost all of it is in a flood zone. Working through that problem could delay the district for a few years.

Kentucky is finalizing its plans for a Kroger Field entertainment district in Lexington. The initial design called for most of the completion in 2027, but that appears unlikely because the project hasn’t broken ground yet.

First, UK must demolish Bluegrass Community and Technical College at the site of the future entertainment district.

Has Tennessee solved problems that other schools face?

Tennessee announced the Neyland Entertainment District in 2023, and brainstorming on the project began long before that. UT has already solved many of the problems that other schools are encountering.

LSU is amid a funding fight over its proposed entertainment district. But UT Chief Financial Officer David Miller said Tennessee will rake in revenue while bearing no financial risk in the $280 million Neyland project.

UT will finance an estimated $83 million to build the new G10 garage through Tennessee State School Bonds, which is typical for parking garages on campus. And the university will collect parking revenue.

Otherwise, UT will put no money into the project and act as landlord. The developer will pay UT an annual base rent of $1.5 million plus between 3-5% of gross revenue above $25 million annually from the condo-hotel and entertainment space in separate payments.

South Carolina would lose almost seven acres of parking to build its entertainment district, so it must account for that complication. But Tennessee plans to build the Neyland Entertainment District vertically and add parking spaces in a new G10 garage.

Fan frustration comes with every entertainment district

But all these entertainment districts come with growing pains that fans must endure.

Frustrated Wake Forest fans have dealt with gameday traffic and parking problems during the construction of a $250 million entertainment district called The Grounds. And it’s still a year away from completion.

Tennessee fans have already voiced their concerns about potential parking issues when the G10 garage is unavailable in the 2026 football season.

Kansas will have limited capacity for home football games in 2026 because one side of its stadium in Lawrence is a construction zone, including the adjacent entertainment district. The restaurants, hotel and parking garage won’t be complete until 2028, and some Jayhawk fans wonder if it’s worth the headache.

A quick search of fan message boards where these entertainment districts are planned reveals common complaints.

Is the university prioritizing money over academics? Will the traditional campus vibe be replaced by a strip mall? Does a boutique hotel cater to elite donors over common fans?

Those questions are being asked across numerous college fan bases, and perhaps they’ll be answered. But it appears entertainment districts are here to stay in college sports.

Tennessee will be among the first but certainly not the last.