Tennessee athletics is in the midst of one of the busiest times of the year. The Vols’ football team is deep into the transfer portal, men’s and women’s basketball is already underway and baseball and softball is on the horizon.
With so much going on on Rocky Top, Tennessee Athletic Director Danny White joined Voice of the Vols Mike Keith on ‘The Mike Keith Show‘ to field questions about everything happening on campus.
Here’s what he said.
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On Tennessee Basketball’s double-overtime win over Texas A&M on Tuesday night
“I was sitting in the stands with my family and pretty much freaking out along with 20,000 of my best friends. Yeah, it was just a really hard-fought game, obviously. And proud of our team and to pull it out. But there was some critical moments there. And yeah, I think we’re all pretty tense, but I tend to get that way on game day. I get, I think like a lot of people, a little nervous, a little tight. And it really doesn’t matter to the level of the game. It’s pretty much every game. And I’m not really relieved of that until I know that we’ve won. But I just hate losing. Really hate losing, Mike.”
On handling the tension of Tennessee games
“Yeah, I find myself doing that (moving around) at football more. And it might just be the construct of our arena. There’s not a lot of places to go when every seat is filled. I have this superstition that if we’re not playing well, and I change locations in the stadium, somehow that’s going to have an impact on the game. I also have a superstition where I have to have a game day hot dog. And if we’re not playing well and I haven’t had my game day hot dog, I start to question if that’s a factor. And so I got to rush and find a hot dog.”
On if his competitive nature comes from growing up in a family that worked in sports
“Growing up, everything was competition. Both my parents were track coaches. My mom’s probably the most competitive one in the family. So competing with my brothers, driveway basketball, a lot of bloody noses, a lot of skinned knees. We were always competing at something. It doesn’t really matter. If we’re going to the beach as a family, we’re figuring out something to compete on. And that’s I think just kind of the part of the DNA of our family.”
On talking with Rick Barnes after the win over Texas A&M
“Well, he was in a nice talkative mood after that close game.”
On how he handles a veteran coach like Rick Barnes, who has been around as long as he has and has won close to 850 games in his career
“I don’t. I let him do his job and I stay out of his way. Ask him what he needs. I try to do that with all of our head coaches. We have great leadership. I’ll put our roster head coaches up against anybody in the country. I’ve said that a bunch and I believe it. Rick is so accomplished, as you say, future Hall of Famer and should be relatively soon Hall of Famer. But how he does his job and the way he leads the types of men he brings into his program and develops them, what I get to see behind the scenes, gives me even more confidence that I need you to stay out of this guy’s way because he’s doing it the right way.
“The wins everyone gets to see. And how hard our team competes everyone gets to see. How well our student athletes represent us in front of a camera like this, our fans get to see. Those of us closer to the program, I’m sure you’ve seen it, we get to see a little bit of the behind the scenes and he’s a genuine leader and a great coach and just awesome to work with. Couldn’t be more excited about the rest of the season and where this team can grow under his mentorship.”
On how an athletic director can help his coaches win in 2026
“In 2026? Roster construction? Historically, it was about facilities and staffing and those things are still important. Everything is important in a competitive space. But how do we resource our programs at the highest level possible where we can compete for a championship? When we talk about competing for a championship, I don’t make any difference between an SEC or a national championship. I think you’re saying the same thing. If you’re good enough to win an SEC championship, you’re good enough to win a national championship. And we have 20 sports and it’s my job and our leadership team’s job to equip all of those coaches with the ability to compete for a championship.
“With that being said, there’s a whole host of other schools that are also trying to do the same thing. And the nature of sport there, it’s going to be cyclical. But our expectations are to be in that conversation. And on the men’s basketball conversation, I think we certainly are.”
On his viewpoint of the 2025 Tennessee Football season after looking back on it
“I think every season in every sport we have, you establish team goals and competing for a conference championship and football getting into the (College Football) Playoff, winning a national championship, all those things are goals. And if you fall short of those things, getting to a bowl game and winning the bowl game. And we obviously, I don’t know that anyone in our football program would say that we accomplished any of the goals that we set forth at the beginning of the season. But at the same time, we all know how thin those margins were.
“A couple of those really big games could have easily gone our way. And we played a lot of young guys that got a lot of great experience. Really excited about the future of our football program under Josh’s continued leadership. Really excited about next season, knowing all that we’ve accomplished and are going to accomplish here in the closing days of the transfer portal on top of the best recruiting class, I don’t know, we’ve gotten in 20-plus years, which was on the heels of the best recruiting class previously that had been a couple decades. And those guys will be second-year players. So I think we’re in a really strong place to get back to postseason competition and hopefully make a run in the Playoffs.”
On how much of his time is spent working on Tennessee’s NIL and revenue share
“It’s a huge piece. And the more rules we make, the more complicated we’re making it on ourselves. We are going to comply with the terms of the House Settlement. Those are the rules we all agreed on. And under my watch, we’re not going to break a rule. And I think Tennessee is above that. And we’ve had hiccups in our past historically, but we’re not going to be about cutting corners here. We’re going to win with integrity, but that won’t change our expectations. And I think with the best fanbase in the country, we can build a resource base. We have built a budget that can allow us to win and make sure we’re staying within the rules. But having said that, the more little rules and nuances we create around this, the more work it creates. But we got great partnerships on the sponsorship side. We have really strong staff with our NIL operations staff. And then it takes really strong coordination, more so than ever before, in the construction of a roster and in the recruiting process, the collaboration between the NIL operations and administrative support, our sport administrators working with the personnel department in our football program, in our basketball programs, is critically important.”
On if part of the job if figuring out who all can be involved in the process, including outside of the athletic department
“Closer coordination, I think is fair to say. This is Year 1 of the rev share, which is the $20.5 million that is coming directly from from our athletics department. And now we can have contracts directly with the kids. So we have athletic department staff in our NIL ops division that talk directly to the players’ agents. And what I like about that is we can make sure that we’re fulfilling our promises and what we say we’re going to do and what their experiences is going to be like, we need to over deliver on that in every way possible. And that’s not all just financial, it’s their overall experience here. I think we have the best student-athlete experience in the country. Yes, I still call them student athletes because they are students at this university. They are going to get a degree. They’re killing it in the classroom. And they are athletes representing this university. Just because they get paid now doesn’t change the fact that they’re student athletes.”
On if college athletics have improved from where it was a year ago, in terms of the continued evolution of NIL, revenue share and the transfer portal
“I would say it’s gotten worse and that might be a necessary evil because what I’m seeing and I’m hopeful of is more people are opening their eyes to something that our chancellor and I have been saying for about four years now, which is there’s only two solutions to this problem. It’s congress changing the laws of our country, or us accepting what the antitrust law says. And there is a construct in that that legal environment that we all that exists today, that the NBA and the NFL are structured on and that’s called collective bargaining. And I think that there’s a way to do that in higher education that that makes sense. I think we can actually have stronger connection to academics than what we have right now. I think we can slow down just the frequency of transfers.
“I cringe when I think what the national graduation rates are going to look like when you have players that are playing at three, four different schools, five in some instances. Really hard to graduate in a degree that you care about if you graduate at all when you’re having that much transition. And obviously the fan affinity. Fans, I think, would appreciate a little more stability in that space. A lot of the players would appreciate more stability in that space. Players value leadership and continuity in the locker room. In my conversations with leaders of our teams and nationally, I think people would be surprised to hear that a lot of the things we as fans, as administrators, as coaches want, the players want (that) too. They want their piece of the pie. The revenue’s gotten so significant and they deserve a piece of the pie. We got to organize it though. And I think the way to do that is through collective bargaining.”
On the progress toward the Neyland Entertainment District
“I can’t wait. It’s going to be a lot of different concepts, but the biggest one being a big sports bar that can host 150 people on a Tuesday night, just locally and the campus community, but it can host thousands of people on game day. We’re working with a group that has a ton of experience with entertainment districts and professional sports around the country. And then there’s a higher end restaurant overlooking the river that I think is very unique to Knoxville, that’ll provide kind of an elevated experience that’s very East Tennessee, Rocky Top themed. And then obviously connecting with the hotel and the condo.
“There’ll be an outdoor concert stage and it’ll be electric on game day. But our campus environment is already electric on game day. That’s not really why we’re doing it. It’ll be a lift for game day, but it’s an even bigger lift for the other 358 days out of the year. And that could mean that there’s concerts going on, so we have a critical mass of people coming — baseball, softball games, basketball games. Or it could just mean that it’s a Wednesday night and maybe there’s a game on the road and this is a great place to go watch the game. Or maybe it’s just a place that our students, our faculty, our staff, the Knoxville community want to come and enjoy some live music on the stage or a night out overlooking the Tennessee River in the shadow of Neyland Stadium. So I think it’s going to be an iconic setup.
“And the funding model, it’s a public-private partnership. We’re leasing the land, they’re building the entertainment district, they’re building the hotel, the condo. They take all the business risk there. There’s a minor revenue lift for our athletic department, but nothing significant. That’s never been a driver of why we’re doing it. More about the experience for, when I say experience, I’m really speaking beyond just the athletic department. From an athletics perspective, will it be a, a lift for our student athletes and our fans? Yeah, it certainly will. But it’s much bigger than that. The entire university community and Knoxville community. I think it’s going to be really cool.”
On the progress of Lindsey Nelson Stadium a month away from Tennessee Baseball’s first game
“Can’t wait to see it. It’s been a long time coming. And we obviously we’re hoping to be open last year and. But all systems go. There’s a lot of work still left to do and, but we will be ready to roll for the first game. Can’t wait for folks to experience a Rocky Top Club, that’s our first indoor-outdoor premium amenity we’ve been able to offer in baseball. I think particularly in the earlier months when it’s a little bit chillier, that’s going to be a great amenity for folks And the expanded concourses, the MVP Club expansion, it significant and should provide a much better, more comfortable experience for all those folks. And with an increase in capacity of the stadium, by diversifying our offerings that way. Just like we’ve seen in the Food City Center with the new Riverside Club in Neyland Stadium with the Lower West Club, if we can break up the offerings, we can depopulate some of the main concourses and make it a better experience for everybody involved.”
On changes made at Tennessee’s softball stadium
“We got some televisions coming in the concourses, working on that. I got that feedback last year. Particularly late in the season when the games matter so much. Didn’t want to miss a single pitch. You know, when Karlyn Pickens is throwing the ball, you don’t want to miss any one of them. But our new clubhouse will break ground next month. We were a first mover in softball from a facility standpoint and we were a leader nationally. We’ve fallen behind a little bit and we’re going fix that in short order. An expansion and a new front door to our softball clubhouse is drastically needed. And so that’s the first phase. And then we’re looking very seriously in seeking philanthropic help for an indoor indoor practice facility for softball that the elite softball programs around the country all have, other than us. Because we are obviously an elite softball program.”
On what Tennessee fans will notice at Neyland Stadium in 2026
“I think we will have worked out a lot of the challenges we went through this past year with in ingress and egress. The Silverstein Luper Building, which everyone knows Peyton Manning Pass when you’re walking down that hill, the building on the corner has expired it’s useful life for campus. And so that’s going away. That’ll be a huge help. When we think about and talk to best practices around the country for event management, some of them work for us, some of them just don’t because we have a very unique footprint with the river and being right there smack dab in the middle of campus. I mean, we got academic buildings 10 feet away from the stadium. It’s tight. We have to continue to explore ways to make it better. And we have a whole crew of people working on that all spring. I expect we’ll have a much smoother ingress and egress. And in the southwest corner Tickle Plaza will be finished. Champions Corner, for our national championship coaches and statues, will be up and all of that will be aesthetically much better to look at. But also should allow for us to take better advantage of the expanded South Concourse. It’s three times as big as it was before. And we now have the same ability to move people through the gates on that southwest corner as we do on the Northwest with Gate 21. So some of it is changes in behavior, and fans to understand how things are improving and how they can take advantage of it, and a lot of it is us doing a better job of managing our unique set of circumstances.”
On the NCAA Revenue and Expenditure Report, the revenues at $304.1 million expenditures nearly $289 million and his overall thoughts on those numbers
“It’s amazing how, how far we’ve come. When I first got here in 2021, our budget was $143 (million). To be over $300 (million), we’re in a rare company with just a small handful of athletic departments. That $143 (million) four or five years ago was about 10th in the SEC and we’re now knocking on the door of first. I think we’re still trailing Texas, but by a much smaller margin in second in the league. And we’ll see where it plays out nationally. But more importantly, it allows us to resource and do what we talk about doing. If we want to be an ‘everything school,’ you can’t say that if you’re not resourcing all 20 of those sports in a way where they can compete for a championship. And I know that we are, but we wouldn’t be able to do that. We wouldn’t have been able to grow our budget as aggressively as we have if it wasn’t for the best fanbase in all of sport. Like we’ve talked about a bunch and it’s not just some of the mainstream revenue sources you think about. The obvious one, you know, ticket sales and we sell out our stadium. It’s obviously more money, but it’s fundraising, it’s philanthropic giving. People believe in the vision and their supporting us at a really high level. We’ve shattered our fundraising record for four years in a row and the numbers from this past year that are going out are just astronomical compared to our history and really looking nationally around college sports. But licensing numbers have doubled, sponsorship numbers have doubled. Things that don’t necessarily relate directly to just game day. Concession numbers have, I don’t know, at least doubled. But getting people in our stadium, having sold-out stadiums and making sure that we’re taking advantage of all the resources that this community gives us to build the best athletic department in the country and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
On the surplus money from Tennessee’s budget and expenditures not just going into the bank
“Yeah, I wish it was, I’d sleep a lot better. We are spending every dollar we’re bringing in. That surplus is allocated and earmarked for facility improvements, capital projects. It’s just the way the accounting works. It’s not accounted as an operational expense. But we are maxed out, foot on the accelerator, everything we can do to win and win at a high level. And win the right way with integrity, it takes resources to do that. But I’m not sitting on big reserves. My job would be a lot easier if we were sitting on money in the sofa. But I want to win. And being competitive and running our athletic department as competitively as possible is exactly what we’re going to do.”
On where he’ll be on Saturday during the Tennessee-Kentucky basketball game at Food City Center
“I’ll probably be a little bit everywhere. It’s a big one. Excited about it. It’s become under, Rick’s leadership, a much bigger rivalry because we’re winning a whole lot of these games. And I know our guys are fired up. I think the other night was a big growing experience for our team, and especially the younger guys, to come out on top of a tough competition like that, against a team that plays a unique style and overcome those challenges. We were uncomfortable. And there are times when it didn’t look good, but we figured it out. And I’m hopeful that’s kind of a turning point. Not that we’ve been playing poorly, we’ve had a good year so far. We want to have a great year. We want win it all. That’s always the goal. And this team, I expect con continue to grow in the Kentucky game is the next big opportunity.”
