Decision on Off-Campus Move Expected by October

Vanderbilt is expected to make a decision on whether to move the football team off-campus to a proposed Fairgrounds stadium by October, per the Tennessean’s Joey Garrison.

The reason is simple: Nashville’s MLS ownership group, headed by John Ingram, is expected to present a final stadium proposal to the Nashville Metro Council later this year. Vanderbilt’s decision would affect the capacity of the proposed stadium: to accommodate Vanderbilt football, the new stadium would need to seat around 35,000, while an MLS-only stadium would be smaller than that. So Vanderbilt’s decision will have to come prior to the final stadium proposal being submitted.

I’ve made my feelings about the possibility of football moving off-campus known and so have many others here. Per an earlier report by Adam Sparks, John Ingram has recused himself from any Vanderbilt Board of Trust decision about the stadium move (due to the obvious conflict of interest.) Still, with the way things have been moving, I would be semi-surprised at this point if the Board of Trust voted against moving football to the new stadium.