Not a big deal in a "that's ma money" outrage, but disappointing.
That's certainly the common rallying cry, that the athletic department is independent and spending it's own money.
My response is always that maybe it should not be independently spending money.

Since funding from the state is being cut every year, UT is forced to provide more and more funding from private sources, and that is true for all of its activities, not just the sports programs. Therefore every dollar donated privately to fund yet another ultra-lavish mega-mega-sports thingie is a dollar not available for funding the History Department, the English Department, the Math Department, or the University Libraries.

If the state won't fund academics adequately using tax dollars, and private donors want mostly to fund sports, then you end up with, well, what you pretty much see on campus today. And the situation is only going to get worse, until the taxpayers or private donors decide to start funding academics. I'm not holding my breath.

and we're reaping the seeds of many, many misplaced leadership initiatives for university leadership.

Gone are the days when career university employees one day reached the top of the institution they loved and cherished, now the university's future has been sold to mercenaries who are there to pick up some big bucks, raise a few million, while the best and brightest across Tennessee chose to go to school anywhere but UT. At UT, by a classes second year, fully half of the freshman class is elsewhere besides enrolled at UT, the lottery dollars having run dry after a year's worth of not quite adjusting to academic requirements of college life.

Whoever the last UT guy is out of the institution formerly known as The University of Tennessee, please turn out the lights and place a bid on the former president's home on Cherokee Boulevard.