Vanderbilt’s recent streak of athletic upsets is costing the school more than energy in the celebrations.
Saturday’s 74-69 men’s basketball upset of the No. 9 Kentucky Wildcats led to Commodore fans storming the court at Memorial Gymnasium, the second time that’s happened this month after last Saturday’s upset over Tennessee.
This is the third time Vandy fans have stormed the field of play during this athletic calendar year, the first coming after last fall’s stunning football win over a top-ranked Alabama team.
Well, CBS Sports’ David Cobb and Front Office Sports’ Alex Schiffer calculated that Vanderbilt has racked up $850,000 in fines this year for the three crowd storms because of, per Schiffer, how conference rules function for crowd storm violations.
The first crowd storm in the fall cost Vandy $100,000. The second bumped up the fine to $250,000. Saturday’s will cost the school a whopping $500,000. All fines are paid to the losing school, meaning Kentucky made $500,000 for its troubles.
First offense: beating Alabama in football ($100k)
Second offense: beating Tennessee in basketball ($250k)
Third offense: beating Kentucky in basketball ($500k)Might be financially savvy to beef up security on the West End before Auburn comes to town. pic.twitter.com/Bk00ysJxTn
— David Cobb (@DavidWCobb) January 25, 2025
Vanderbilt’s court storming fines this school year:
🏈 $100K to Alabama
🏀 $250K to Tennessee
🏀 $500K to Kentucky@Alex__Schiffer has more on the $850K the Nashville school has racked up so far ⬇️— Front Office Sports (@FOS) January 26, 2025
While the school’s athletic department might enjoy not shelling out any more money for court storming, new Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington sure doesn’t seem to mind seeing this kind of fan enthusiasm.
“There’s big picture things I wanted to happen around here and at one point I want to be where we’re not surprised, that we don’t feel like the underdog in the in these games,” Byington said after Saturday’s upset win, via The Tennessean‘s Aria Gerson.
“And we’re going into them knowing that that our program is good and we expect to win. We’re not there yet. So let the fans enjoy it. We’ve got to start a GoFundMe page or something to pay fines. We’ll figure it out.”
You heard it, Vandy fans. Keep those court storms coming!
