Vanderbilt Stadium naming rights sold to FirstBank for the next 10 years

Vanderbilt Stadium is no more. The simply-named venue for Vanderbilt football is moving on, after FirstBank stepped up and paid a hefty sum to the Commodores to have their name on the stadium for the next ten years, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel.

Thamel reported the news early Monday afternoon, when he tweeted this update:

“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.”

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He also added another message below it:

“It marks a significant financial influx for Vanderbilt, part of athletic director Candice Lee’s attempts to modernize the football program. Vanderbilt breaks ground on more than $300 million in facilities upgrades later this fall.”

Vanderbilt Stadium may have had sentimental value. And it definitely feels less corporate than “FirstBank” Stadium. But probably a good move for the ‘Dores to sell out. They’re already by far the lowest-earning SEC football team and, not surprisingly, the one that loses the most. So an influx of cash to help build brand new facilities and work on other projects is just what they needed.

If you go back six or seven years to when Kentucky was still at the bottom of the food chain and losing to Vandy 40-0, one move that helped them climb out of the basement was selling the naming rights to their stadium and flushing a lot of that money into facility upgrades. Now, Kentucky ascended for plenty of other reasons too. But that step sure did help.

Perhaps Vanderbilt is starting on that sort of track. Maybe not to 10-3 anytime soon, but at least out of last place for a season.