Vanderbilt athletics is getting a boost from the ongoing Vandy United campaign, and as of today, that now comes with a new name for the football stadium as Vanderbilt has sold the naming rights to Nashville-based FirstBank.
Source: Vanderbilt has sold the naming rights of Vanderbilt Stadium to FirstBank for the next 10 years. It’ll be the first time in the more than century of Vanderbilt football that the school has sold the stadium’s naming rights. The stadium will be called FirstBank Stadium.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) August 29, 2022
Vanderbilt is not the first SEC school to sell the naming rights to its football stadium — that would be Kentucky, which has spent several years playing at Kroger Field, formerly known as Commonwealth Stadium — but this always seemed like an obvious, untapped source of revenue for university athletics, particularly since the stadium’s actual name (Vanderbilt Stadium) was almost never used, with most fans referring to the stadium as “The Dud” for Dudley Field, formerly the stadium’s official name and now just the designation of the actual playing surface.