Clemson's newest money-maker: How stadium concerts pump millions into athletics
For most of this century, Clemson’s Memorial Stadium would host its last football game of the year in November … then go into hibernation for nine months.
But this summer, the school’s football stadium has been the opposite of sleepy.
At a time when schools are pulling every possible lever to generate additional revenue, big-name music acts are drawing tens of thousands of fans to Clemson’s biggest venue for concerts — and the Tigers are seeing strong financial returns.
On May 2, George Strait set a Memorial Stadium attendance record as 90,037 fans flocked to Clemson and watched “The King of Country Music” headline Death Valley’s first major concert in 27 years.
Morgan Wallen, one of the biggest names in modern country, will keep the good times rolling with concerts at Memorial Stadium this Friday and Saturday.
And Clemson’s in the thick of negotiating and securing the next show (or shows) at the venue for spring or summer 2027, athletic director Graham Neff revealed in a June 16 radio interview with 105.5 The Roar.
The shows are reflective of a larger effort from the university and Clemson Ventures, the private “affiliate organization” it established in 2024, to generate millions in additional revenue for the Tigers with the cost of college sports skyrocketing.
Neff’s take on the concert experiment so far?
“We’re pleased with the economics of it,” he told The State at ACC spring meetings in May. “And that’s a part of it — let’s be honest. That’s a driver.”
How George Strait concert boosted Clemson athletics
Numbers from Strait’s show give a glimpse at how a country concert in the spring could wind up helping, say, the Clemson football team in the fall.
Memorial Stadium sold 106,226 units of alcohol during Strait’s concert and generated $1.813 million in gross revenue from alcohol alone, per data obtained by The State via public records request. Total food and beverage sales (including alcohol) came out to 185,262 units and $2.847 million in gross revenue.
Even after splitting those earnings 50-50 with Aramark, its concession provider, Clemson athletics will still make about $1.4 million off food and beverage.
And that’s just the publicly available information. Clemson’s total revenues from the Strait concert will be comfortably in the seven-figure range, an athletics source told The State. TigerIllustrated.com reported the school will make over $4 million.
That’s because when artists and their labels negotiate to play shows at Clemson, they’re not negotiating with Clemson athletics: They’re negotiating with Clemson Ventures — which, despite being an “affiliated organization” of Clemson and working closely with the school, is a separate, non-university entity.
This setup allows artists and promoters to strike deals without their figures falling under public records law, similar to how Clemson and South Carolina manage revenue-sharing contracts with their athletes. (The state hustled to pass a law keeping such contracts exempt from public disclosure earlier this year.)
Event contracts between artists and venues generally cover how the parties will split revenue from such things as tickets, parking, merchandise, premium seating and VIP experiences (artists usually get the larger cut). Representatives for Strait and Wallen negotiated and signed those deals with Clemson Ventures.
So, by the books, Clemson athletics earned the aforementioned $1.4 million in food/beverage sales. Clemson Ventures also paid Clemson athletics a $24,000 rental fee to use Memorial Stadium for eight days of prep and the Strait concert itself ($6,000 a day). Clemson Ventures retained all other revenues.
But the end result was a sizable chunk of revenue (reportedly $4 million) that’ll benefit Clemson athletics in one way or another.
Wallen’s Friday and Saturday concerts have a slightly different on-field figuration that will only seat 65,000 to 70,000 people, as opposed to Strait’s 90,000.
But since Wallen’s playing two shows, Clemson’s earnings from his concerts at Memorial Stadium should exceed the revenue from Strait’s standalone show.
‘The business is changing’
Concerts are the most visible part of Clemson athletics’ push to add new revenue streams and stay competitive amid a changing college sports landscape.
Among other shifts, the school has added a student athletics fee and started selling alcohol at sporting events as well as premium tailgating options at football games.
Clemson Ventures has landed a number of corporate partnerships and sponsorships since its founding, and athletic department leaders have had exploratory conversations about jersey patches, on-field logos and naming rights at venues.
Neff, Clemson’s AD since 2021, said that sort of evolution is necessary in 2026. Schools can pay their athletes up to $20.5 million directly under terms of the House settlement, and they can coordinate additional “above-the-cap” NIL deals.
Clemson is one of many schools to lean into football stadium concerts. Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean performed at Georgia in April. Luke Combs was at Tennessee in May. Wallen played at Alabama and Florida’s football stadiums earlier this spring on his “Still The Problem” tour, and he’s scheduled to play at Michigan’s stadium in July.
“The business is changing,” Neff said June 16 on the ”Reign Supreme” podcast. “We have new expenses — revenue-sharing and NIL that we’ve gotta drive and lean into. That has so much more relationship to competitive success than ever before. Money’s gotta come from somewhere, so we’ve gotta raise it.”
Clemson’s athletics spending budget for 2026 is about $215 million, Neff said. Big events like the Strait and Wallen concerts are a key part of the athletic department’s strategy to offset those costs with a roughly equal amount of athletics revenue.
But the school’s promising a deliberate approach to its “Death Valley Nights” concert series, which also included a post-baseball game country concert at Jervey Meadows in April and could include future events in basketball’s Littlejohn Coliseum.
There’s consistent communication with city leaders. Clemson did a full replacement of its grass football field after the Savannah Bananas played a baseball game at Memorial Stadium in April 2025, and Wallen’s tour company will cover the cost of another field replacement after his concerts this weekend.
As it positions itself as an annual concert host, Neff said Clemson is also committed to learning from its shortcomings – like the hours of bumper-to-bumper postgame traffic thousands of fans encountered after the Strait concert ended in May.
Neff said he experienced that postgame traffic, too, and Clemson welcomed attendees’ feedback and criticism. The school’s been more proactive about distributing parking and traffic information ahead of Wallen’s shows.
“We have a lot that we learned and that we’ll look to implement in the Morgan Wallen concert and for future concerts for years to come,” Neff said.
