Flying J Squirrel White? Imagining Tennessee football name changes for NIL deals | Adams
Tennessee announced Wednesday a multi-year naming-rights agreement with Food City. The 10-year agreement will pay UT $20 million.
In return, Thompson-Boling Arena will become Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center. Good luck working that into a headline.
You might wonder: “Could this affect the price of groceries?”
Don’t worry. I have it from a reliable source that the price of a bag of Ruffles potato chips at Food City will not skyrocket to $487.
Once I was assured chips wouldn’t become unaffordable, I was OK with the new name. You probably were, too, unless you imagined this as the first in a series of rebranding deals. What could be next? Could Neyland Stadium become Neyland Stadium at Kroger Center?
Surely not – at least, not unless the supermarket and coach Josh Heupel come up with seven new maxims as inspirational as the one General Neyland devised.
If you are despondent over this everything-is-for-sale era in college sports, my advice: Don’t fight it and move on. It’s only going to get worse.
I’m already wondering: Who will be the first college athlete to change his name for an NIL deal? Don’t say, “That’s ridiculous.” It’s going to happen.
Perhaps, it would have been less likely 30 or 40 years ago when parents weren’t as creative in what they named their off-springs. Anything goes now. So, a college football team is more likely to have someone with a hyphen or apostrophe in his surname than a John Smith – or even a John Adams – in its starting lineup.
Since colorful names have become commonplace, why not take it a step further when it could be worth thousands of dollars to a student-athlete? And if an athlete weren’t happy with the “rebranding” he could change his name back to the original version when his playing days were done.
As an advocate for the enhancement of student-athletes, I have put some thought into this. Here are a few examples of how current UT football players could make money by rebranding themselves.
Jo’Marcos Garza-Milton
As Tennessee’s starting quarterback, Joe Milton has plenty of leverage. Surely, prominent Knoxville attorney Marcos Garza wouldn’t mind shelling out a few bucks to have Milton promote his firm.
After all, you can’t drive through town without seeing a Marcos Garza billboard. Why not turn Tennessee’s quarterback into another billboard?
Flying J Squirrel White
I’m predicting stardom for Tennessee sophomore wide receiver Squirrel White. So, why wouldn’t a mega-successful travel center like Pilot Flying J want to get in on the ground floor before White becomes an All-SEC player?
The “flying squirrel” moniker might not resonate with everybody. But I grew up with Talmadge Bunch, an animal savant who could catch anything, including flying squirrels.
That stuck with me.
Food City Center Mays
Food City Center is already a part of Tennessee’s sports lexicon, so this wouldn’t be a big leap, especially since Tennessee’s starting center is Cooper Mays.
Also, it’s easy to associate offensive linemen with food. They didn’t become as big as they are by eating parsley.
ADAMS: Like Neyland and Summitt, Lindsey Nelson is Tennessee. Baseball stadium should keep his name
Quarter-Pounder McDonald’s
A name transition for commercial purposes would be easy for Vols defensive back Tamarion McDonald. He would only have to change his first name and add an apostrophe “s” to his last name.
The advertising impact would be magnified when McDonald made a game-changing play because some sportswriter couldn't resist writing something like: “Big Mac attack turns back goal-line threat.”
John Adams is a senior columnist. He may be reached at 865-342-6284 or john.adams@knoxnews.com. Follow him at: twitter.com/johnadamkns.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Flying J Squirrel White? Tennessee football NIL name changes imagined
