SEC programs following lead of Truist Park’s The Battery Atlanta

Things are going well for the Atlanta Braves, off the field with the financial success of The Battery Atlanta, as well as on the field, where they have won an MLB-high 30 games.

SEC athletic programs have taken note of The Battery’s success.

The University of Tennessee is among a handful of SEC schools on the verge of adding a multipurpose entertainment district that includes a condo-hotel, restaurants and shops that many are comparing to The Battery.

Other SEC schools with ongoing entertainment district construction and planning include Oklahoma, LSU, Ole Miss and Kentucky.

Certainly, financial goals accompany the construction in this NIL age of schools looking for new revenue streams; The Battery sets an example there, too.

Opening in 2017 alongside what was then known as SunTrust Park, The Battery generated approximately $137 million in revenue in 2025, including $97.4 million in revenue for the Braves, with a total of nearly $40 million in tax revenue, according to a Marietta Daily Journal report.

UT athletic director Danny White initiated the current $280 million project in Knoxville, which will span the Tennessee River waterfront near Neyland Stadium (expected to open in 2028).

Former Tennessee College Football Hall of Fame coach and athletic director Phillip Fulmer can see the similarities to The Battery and the wisdom of the project.

“The Battery was ahead of its time, and now everyone is trying to catch up,” Fulmer, who once recruited Atlanta heavily as the Vols football coach and held fundraising events at The Battery during his tenure as athletics director from 2017-2021, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“Danny White has done a great job with all of this, taking advantage of the resources and having a vision for an older stadium.”

Fulmer himself had such a vision for building condos and parking around the stadium after visiting the Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium and using studies on such expansion that preceded him at UT.

But, Fulmer said, “I didn’t have the vision we’re talking about now, it’s really impressive and a lot bigger and more detailed.”

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said he has noted the trend of league schools following the success of The Battery.

“It (entertainment district) brings people into campus, it brings the community in and it provides opportunities for people that seem reasonable if it works from both an economics and logistics space standpoint,” Sankey said Monday at the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame during the APSE’s Southeast Region meetings.

“Where I’m aware of plans, they seem quite well thought-out and intentional in what they are trying to achieve.”

In addition to Tennessee’s plans:

• Baton Rouge leaders are advancing a $1 billion plan to develop a new LSU entertainment district and a $400 million, 8,500-seat arena, per an Athletic Business report.

• The University of Kentucky is developing a year-round “fan experience” and mixed-use entertainment district adjacent to Kroger Field. The plans feature dining, retail shops and hotels.

• Ole Miss is advancing plans for a 25-acre mixed-use entertainment district along with its Vaught-Hemingway Stadium expansion project.

Per the Jackson-Clarion Ledger, the multiasset project will add 3,000 seats to the stadium in addition to a 100-room hotel, 30 condos and a half-acre plaza.

• Oklahoma has broken ground on a $1.1 billion “Rock Creek Entertainment District” in Norman.

The 269-acre district will include retail, dining and housing, along with a brand-new arena for the Sooners’ men’s and women’s basketball programs, as well as the school’s gymnastics program.