You Go Bruton!

http://www.roanoke.com/sports/college/30642.html

Personally I would love to see it.

175,000 fans at a football game...

 

Bruton Smith is badass. I mean, seriously badass.

 

Damn that's a lot of cash. Does he have any other connection other than owning the track?

 

He's got $40 million in connections - don't think he would need much more than that

the fact that both schools are so high profile and Bristol is split in half by the Tenn/Va state line makes it pretty damn compelling

 

allright - well I never thought I'd see the day when UT's stadium wasn't big enough of a venue. The only downside is when he comes out and uses the word "astroturf".

 

Somebody with more smarts than me tell me how Smith makes money on this.

 

TV?

Dunno man, but if he does this, I am so there. Huge game.

But please lord, no Astroturf. get some of that Nike indoor turf. Virtually indistinguishable from grass.

 

Bruton doesn't know the difference between astroturf and the sportgrass stuff. He'd to it up right, and not give a horse's ass how much it costs.

The tickets for this game would be extremely expensive, and 170,000 people all buying hot dogs,parking, camping and other things would easily make Bruton some cash.

 

Bruton Smith kicks fucking ass!

 

Bristol Bowl proposal one from which UT should race

Commentary by DAVID CLIMER
Senior Writer

Published: Monday, 08/29/05 Now that they've gotten the quarterback controversy straightened out, maybe the folks at Tennessee can decide if they want to serve as the punch line to Bruton Smith's joke.

After a week of sniffing exhaust fumes, Smith once again floated the idea of staging a UT-Virginia Tech football game in the infield of Bristol Motor Speedway.

"It would be very exciting and would set all-time records," said Smith, chairman, CEO and grand pooh-bah of Speedway Motorsports Inc.

Hey, why stop here? Alabama and Auburn can play at Talladega. Florida-Florida State is a natural for Daytona. Texas and Texas A&M can hook up at Texas Motor Speedway.

Smith says he'll pony up $20 million per school to see his football dream come true.

The sounds you just heard were the jaws of UT Athletics Director Mike Hamilton and Virginia Tech's Jim Weaver dropping to the ground. When somebody starts throwing around those kinds of numbers — seriously or not — it will get plenty of attention.

With the high cost of doing college sports business these days, most ADs would have their teams play in a Wal-Mart parking lot if the price was right.

If all this sounds vaguely familiar, it is. Smith drops this bombshell every few years just to get a rise out of fans and university administrators. In 1999, Smith offered UT and Virginia Tech $3.5 million each to play at Bristol. Then-UT Athletics Director Doug Dickey turned him down flat.

Now, I know the cost of gas has gone up since '99, but we're talking some serious inflation here. Smith has gone from a $3.5 million guarantee per school to $20 million apiece. And he's saying it with a straight face.

Smith says he would remove existing structures and scrape the infield clean, install an artificial turf field and add 10,000-12,000 field-level seats to the existing 160,000 grandstand seats.

Presto! You have a football game with a potential crowd of at least 170,000. Smith is either a modern-day P.T. Barnum with a golden touch or he doesn't know another way to make a major donation to these two colleges.

This is a money pit of epic proportions. Unless Smith is going to charge $300 a ticket — which is a stretch for even the most rabid Vols and Hokies fans — he's going to take a bath.

This is a Rose Bowl-type payoff, without the bowl's ability to negotiate its own TV contract. A regular-season game is going to fall under the TV deal that is in effect for each conference.

But maybe money is no object — literally. At age 78, perhaps Smith wants to leave a mark on college football by fusing it with NASCAR. His ways and means might not be appreciated by those whose names are in his will, but you've got to admire his spirit.

Still, there are just too many unanswered questions to take this seriously. You don't just plop down an artificial surface, paint a few lines on it, decorate the end zones and then flip a coin. It's little more complicated than that.

But let's not be so naive to think that UT and Virginia Tech officials won't play along with Smith's joke as long as the money is there. If he's willing to throw $40 million around, there are going to be plenty of people signaling for a fair catch.


Published: Monday, 08/29/05