University of Tennessee Athletics
Nike Debut Sets Records For Tennessee
July 02, 2015 | General
By Brian Rice
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. --
UTSports.com
Fans logged on to UTSports.com at a record pace on Wednesday afternoon to view the unveiling live. The VFL Films production "Swoosh," hosted by VFL and Fox Sports analyst Charles Davis and the SEC Network's Maria Taylor headlined the coverage on UTSports.com, which had 330,896 views on Wednesday, with 106,686 unique users.
Of the visitors to UTSports.com for the show, more than 50 percent were first-time visitors to the site. The event surpassed the more than 98,000 visits for Tennessee's coverage of National Signing Day in February.
Tennessee fans showed their loyalty and excitement with their wallets as well. Online visitors purchased over $150,000 in Nike merchandise from http://shop.utsports.com/ on 1,500 transactions, an average of $100 per sale.
On campus, hundreds of fans lined up before the doors opened at the Vol Shop at Neyland Stadium, with the first fan arriving at 10:00 p.m. Tuesday night. Once the word was given at 12:30 p.m. to open the doors, a gameday-like atmosphere inside the store saw fans spend over $45,000 on Nike apparel at the Neyland location on Wednesday.
The sales pace is even more impressive when compared to the store's grand opening in 2010, when the store brought in $6,700.
Tennessee's social media accounts produced eye-popping numbers as well. The @Vol_Football account had a reach of 14.2 million users on Wednesday. The tweet formally announcing our new Nike uniforms had over 116,000 impressions.
Make plays. Move mountains. Introducing our @usnikefootball Mach Speed Uniforms
http://t.co/JBifnXQ2EK #OneTennessee pic.twitter.com/6swJnthXuj
-- Tennessee Football (@Vol_Football) July 1, 2015
The @Vol_Sports account had a total reach of 4.57 million and had nearly 150,000 impressions with a tweet that debuted the new Smokey Gray uniforms:
Last but not least, Here are the official #SmokeyGray Unis for @Vol_Football pic.twitter.com/it8GXgRuJk
-- Tennessee Athletics (@Vol_Sports) July 1, 2015
The total Twitter reach of "Vols" and #Vols was more that 47 million users.
The Tennessee Football Facebook page also received unprecedented traffic. Photo galleries of the orange, white and Smokey Gray uniforms combined to reach 2.5 million users. 1.5 million of those views came from the gallery of the new Smokey Gray alternate uniform.
The passion of Tennessee fans is unmatched, and the excitement of the new partnership with Nike is just beginning!
