Neyland Stadium

Neyland Stadium (/ˈniːlənd/ NEE-lənd) is a sports stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. It serves primarily as the home of the Tennessee Volunteers football team, but is also used to host large conventions and has been a site for several National Football League (NFL) exhibition games. The stadium's official capacity is 101,915. Constructed in 1921 as Shields–Watkins Field (which is now the name of the playing surface), the stadium has undergone 16 expansion projects, at one point reaching a capacity of 104,079 before being slightly reduced by alterations in the following decade. Neyland Stadium is the sixth largest stadium in the United States, the eighth largest stadium in the world, and the third largest stadium in the Southeastern Conference. The stadium is named for Robert Neyland, who served three stints as head football coach at the University of Tennessee between 1926 and 1952.

The Tennessee Volunteers football team originally played at Baldwin Park, which was once located between Grand Avenue and Dale Avenue, north of Fort Sanders. From 1908 to 1920, the team played at Wait Field, which was located where the Walters Life Science Building now stands.

The stadium was first conceived in 1919. Colonel W.S. Shields, president of Knoxville's City National Bank and a University of Tennessee trustee, provided the initial capital to prepare and equip an athletic field. Thus, when the original stadium – the lower level of the current stadium's West Stands – was completed in March 1921, it was called Shields–Watkins Field in honor of the donor and his wife, Alice Watkins-Shields. However, the project ran out of funds and was suspended temporarily until MacGregor Smith suggested at a meeting of the university's Scarabbean Senior Society in mid 1921 that the students and faculty finish the project together. At the group's behest, students and faculty finished the field over a two-day period. An invitational track meet was then held as a celebration and thus became the first event at Neyland Stadium. The first UT football game at the stadium took place on September 24, 1921, with the Vols defeating Emory & Henry, 27–0. The first night game at Neyland Stadium was played on September 16, 1972, with the Vols defeating Penn State, 28–21.

In 1962, the stadium was renamed Neyland Stadium in honor of General Robert Neyland, the recently deceased former athletic director and coach. Neyland, the man credited with making the Vols a national football power, coached the team from 1926 to 1952, with two interruptions for military service. In 1968, the stadium became one of the first stadiums to have an artificial turf surface. It stayed until natural grass was restored to the field in 1994. Reflecting the Vols' growth in stature, the stadium's capacity jumped more than 14-fold during his 38-year association with UT as either an assistant coach (1925), head coach (three separate tenures from 1926 to 1952), or athletic director (1936–1941 and 1946-1962). By comparison, when Neyland arrived in Knoxville in 1925, Shields-Watkins Field was not even a fraction the size of Tennessee's largest stadium at the time Vanderbilt's Dudley Field. Shortly before his death, he spearheaded the stadium's first major expansion. The plans he drafted were so far ahead of their time that they have formed the basis for every expansion since then. The playing surface is still named Shields–Watkins Field.

The latest additions and updates to the facility were part of a $136.4 million series of renovations, beginning in 2004 and completed by 2010. They included the bricking around the field and the removal of the previous hedges, numerous changes to the inside and outside of the stadium structure, additions and reconfigurations of seating areas, as well as new home locker, press, and varsity rooms.

In a Spring 2001 poll in The Sporting News, Neyland Stadium was ranked as the nation's #1 college football stadium. In 2004, Sports Illustrated ranked Neyland Stadium, the University of Tennessee campus, and the surrounding Knoxville area, as the best college football weekend experience. On April 8, 2009, it was announced that Neyland Stadium was one of seventy stadiums named for the United States' bid to host either the 2018 or 2022 World Cup.

Attendance has been recorded for Tennessee Volunteer football games at Neyland Stadium since 1946. Average attendance since that year has been 68,925 fans per game. The largest crowd ever recorded at Neyland Stadium was 109,061 on September 18, 2004, when Tennessee defeated Florida, 30–28. Tennessee set a school record by averaging 107,595 fans per home game in 2000.

Through week one of the 2022 season, the Tennessee Volunteers football team had compiled a record of 485 wins, 141 losses, and 17 ties at Neyland, for a winning percentage of .767. The team has had 37 perfect home records, the last coming in the 2022 season. The team's longest home winning streak was 30, set between December 8, 1928, and October 21, 1933. The Vols have never had more than four consecutive losses at Neyland Stadium.