On Saturday, Tennessee football came close to knocking off Georgia inside Neyland Stadium, but ultimately fell 44-41 to the Bulldogs in overtime. This was certainly to no fault of the fans in Knoxville, though. The environment was once again top-level, although UGA did do a good job with communication and staying disciplined.
On Sunday morning, Tennessee Athletic Director Danny White issued an apology to fans in attendance. With ongoing renovations to the historic stadium, there were unintended consquences to the fan experience, particularly at a remade Gate 9 and the ‘Truly Plaza’.
“VolNation, I owe so many of you an apology. The experience getting into Neyland yesterday was not acceptable,” White said in a post on X. “The expanded south concourse and gate 9 / Truly Plaza are intended to make ingress much better, and they will, but our plan was obviously not effective. It wasn’t for lack of effort, our staff and campus partners have been working hard on this all offseason. It is proven to be difficult to predict traffic flow with new gates given our tight footprint. That’s not an excuse, we missed the mark. That’s on me. I want you all to know that we are immediately looking at adjustments to our plan. Just as importantly, we will communicate with y’all this week about your best path into the stadium depending on your seat location. Thank you to those that have made me aware of the situation on this platform. I did see it myself at Gate 20. It gutted me to see our loyal fans so frustrated. I’m very sorry. We will fix it.”
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Gate 9 has been expanded by about three times this year, making it a key entry point at the stadium. This was supposed to make it much easier for fans who are seated in the southwest portion of the stadium. Even fans seated in the east were thought to have an easier time using this entry point.
“Gate 9 is on the southwest corner and it feeds right into Level 1,” Deputy Athletics Director/Chief Marketing Officer Alicia Longworth previously said about the change. “So anybody that is sitting on the south end zone, anybody that is sitting on the southwest portion or even the west concourse, I would come in Gate 9. Everything on the west concourse from 21 to 9, all those gates are very small. You can’t get any more people through them than what they are because the size of it is so small. I definitely would recommend that.”
The other major change has been received much more positively. Just around the corner from the Gate 9 entrance, you’ll see another significant expansion. The concourse behind the south end zone has been about tripled in size.
This removed the tucked-in concession stands along the field-side of the concourse. New concessions are placed along the concourse with additional options. Restrooms in this portion are also expanded, in some cases, from about 15 stalls to up to 50.
