Savannah Bananas Knoxville Draw 100000 to Neyland Stadium
savannah bananas knoxville hits Neyland Stadium on May 23, and about 100,000 people are expected Saturday night. It will be the first baseball there since 1921, with the university treating the game as both a spectacle and a live test of its football-game operation.
Alisha Longworth on Neyland
Planning began over a year ago when the Bananas reached out about their football stadium tour, and Visit Knoxville helped bring the conversations together. Alisha Longworth, the university’s deputy athletics director and chief marketing officer, said, “The bananas decided they wanted to go on a football stadium tour, and Neyland being Neyland was, of course, on a list.”
Longworth also said, “Visit Knoxville was really the one kind of wrangling those conversations, brought them to the table.” The scheduling turned Neyland into a high-visibility event site for one night, but the operational work started long before the crowd arrives.
100000 at Neyland Stadium
About 100,000 people are expected at Neyland Stadium Saturday night, and Longworth tied that crowd size directly to the city’s bottom line: “When you put 100,000 people in Neyland Stadium, the economic impact for the entire city is great.” She added, “It’s good for the local community. It’s good for hotels. It’s good for restaurants.”
The Bananas also played one game at Covenant Health Park on May 21, so Knoxville is handling two games in the same week while expecting many out-of-town visitors. That makes the event less like a single game night and more like a short citywide demand spike for rooms, meals, and transportation.
Traffic Study and Parking
The university started a traffic study in the fall with Visit Knoxville, KPD, UTPD and other partners, and it has also been testing new traffic patterns through the Bananas games and the recent Luke Combs concert. Longworth said, “These two events have given us unique opportunities that we are putting 100,000 people in our football stadium, so we can test some things out,”
The football field has already been turned into a baseball diamond, a process Longworth described this way: “You’ve got to bring in the clay, you’ve got to bring in the dirt, you’ve got to get the mound,” She said, “Our grounds crew has been very busy for the last three plus weeks.”
Fans who have not pre-purchased parking are being steered toward Park and Ride shuttles from the Civic Coliseum or the Market Square area, with Coliseum shuttles costing $25 round trip. Longworth said, “If you haven’t pre-purchased parking, I would highly encourage the downtown area to park,”
Tennessee softball may play at 11 a.m. Saturday if the team advances in Super Regionals, so the stadium area could face a two-event squeeze before the Bananas take the field at night. Longworth said the same safety protocols used on football game days will be in place, and she added, “Absolutely no worries,” and “They have nothing to worry about. We will be ready for kickoff in the fall.”
