Neyland Stadium opened its gates early with 50% off beer as Tennessee Vols fans gear up for the No. 1 Texas SEC showdown and Trump's arrival.
Page S2From§Eachthe noon edition — 26 September 2026
Neyland cuts beer 50 percent to seat the crowd before the president's closing pitch for Monday's sports bill
As it ran on the front
The beer is half off and the gates are open early. Read that as a work order. Fox has Vols fans saying they hope he stays the whole game; the New York Post calls the discount an unusual alcohol tactic to get people seated before kickoff. Nobody markets a stadium that way for a football game.
Now the part the beer is paying for. The Hill's live blog says the Knoxville appearance comes ahead of senators' last chance to pass the Protect College Sports Act before they recess into a lame duck. The Washington Examiner says the Senate is expected to pass it Monday, the furthest a collegiate sports bill has ever gotten in Congress. The half-price beer is the only item on that schedule anybody in Knoxville actually asked for.…
…(cont) This route was scouted. On September 12 Ted Cruz took the same bill onto College GameDay and drew what the Examiner called a raucous, rowdy crowd; the cloture vote had already slipped past the August recess. On September 14 Cruz told reporters what the finish should look like: Trump signing the bill live on GameDay, and the goal was never to squeak by with 60 votes. That is a legislative strategy written as a broadcast rundown. The bill was introduced in May and spent the summer going nowhere until somebody figured out the venue.
On September 18, The Nation's justice correspondent Elie Mystal wrote up why Cruz's college sports bill threatens athletes' labor rights. That is one columnist with a warning against a conference schedule, a network set, a president's plane, and a stadium arranged to cheer on cue.
And on the same live blog carrying Trump to Knoxville, the US and China are cutting tariffs on thirty billion dollars' worth of goods. Thirty billion moves in a morning. They found a president, a jet, a security perimeter, and a beer subsidy to seat a crowd for a bill days from a vote most fans in Neyland could not name.
The kid on the field whose labor rights are the open question in this bill does not get a discount. He gets the crowd noise. Monday, the Senate gets the rest.
“They cut the beer in half so the seats would be full before the plane landed — that's not hospitality, that's set dressing for a bill the Senate votes on Monday. Cruz already said out loud he wants it signed live on GameDay, so stop pretending the football is the point. The one guy in the receipts writing about what it does to athletes' labor rights doesn't get a jet, a network set, or a hundred thousand people primed on cheap beer.”
“The President is a football fan, he's attending a football game, and the promotion was the school's idea — did I say promotion? That doesn't sound like me. Look, the bill has been sitting since May, it's the furthest any college sports legislation has ever gotten, and if it happens to pass Monday that's the Senate's calendar, not a beer special. Nobody schedules a Saturday around a Monday vote. People do that all the time.”
The receipts
The Southeastern Conference matchup between the No. 1 Longhorns and No. 14 Volunteers in Knoxville is already one of the biggest games in the country this weekend.
With ESPN's "College GameDay" also on campus, Trump's presence typically is expected to cause heightened security in Knoxville.
President Donald Trump is renewing his push for Congress to pass the Protect College Sports Act, attending Saturday’s No. 1 Texas-No. 14 Tennessee game in Knoxville days before the Senate is expected to pass the bill Monday — the furthest a collegiate sports bill has ever gotten in Congress.
President Trump will attend the University of Texas vs. University of Tennessee football game in Knoxville at noon on Saturday — an appearance coming ahead of senators' last chance to pass the Protect College Sports Act before recessing into a lame-duck period. Trump will fly to Knoxville Saturday morning to watch the Texas Longhorns…
Elie Mystal In this week’s Elie v. U.S ., our justice correspondent looks at the many ways Cruz’s bill threatens athletes’ labor rights. Plus: why our mail-in voting nightmare isn’t over.
· Cruz: Trump should sign college sports bill live on ESPN's 'College GameDay' once passed from the morgue, 14 Sep 2026
· Cruz faces rowdy crowd at College GameDay while promoting the Protect College Sports Act from the morgue, 12 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.