Remember when Tennessee Football fans gathered together to kill Jimmy Haslam’s attempt to strong-arm the Vols into hiring Greg Schiano six and a half years ago? Danny White just sold the entire future of the program to the company that was run by that same failed booster up until this decade.

UT announced a partnership with Pilot that will preserve the name of Neyland Stadium and Shields-Watkins Field for the next 20 years. The stadium will restore the “Home of the Vols” sign on the east side, this time with the Pilot logo next to it. Both ends of the stadium will also have the Pilot logo.

Meanwhile, the name of the stadium will officially be “Neyland Stadium. Home of the Vols. Proudly Preserved by Pilot.” Tennessee Football revealed this news Tuesday morning along with renovation projects to expand space in the stadium and modernize other parts.

Make no mistake, this is a disaster. It’s also peak gaslighting.

The idea that Danny White and Rocky Top had to partner with Pilot to “preserve” the Neyland name makes it sound like the name was in jeopardy to begin with. Nobody is going to breathe a sigh of relief about the stadium’s name now being “preserved.”

More importantly, does anybody think it will stop with just preservation? That’s part of a 20-year deal. What happens in 20 years, when they have to renegotiate? Now that Berkshire Hathaway runs the company and is separated from what Big Jim Haslam, a former Vol, founded, why would they care about tradition?

At that point, there will be hardly any Tennessee ties, and the big wigs at Pilot will see more value in demanding the stadium be named after it rather than have their name to just preserve the stadium. Why would they care? Thompson-Boling Arena is already going down that road by calling it Food City.

You think this is a joke? Look at bowl games.

Back in the day, bowl games were just named after the stadiums they were at. Then, as TV deals came in, they began to have sponsorships in their name. The Gator Bowl became the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl and eventually just the TaxSlayer Bowl while you weren’t paying attention?

This is what corporations do. They slowly introduce a benign way to get involved with something we all hold dear, and after you all accept it over a period of time, they expand their control over that thing. It always ends up that way when money is involved.

Remember, this also applied to the College Football Playoff. It first went to four teams, and everybody said it would stop there. Now, overnight, it’s gone to 12 teams, and 14 is on the table. Eventually, it could go to 20 teams. Heck, the NCAA Tournament is at 68 teams in basketball and they still want to expand.

Let’s look beyond the Pilot takeover, though. What’s worse is who is taking over. Remember, Pilot Flying J was an offshoot of Pilot given to Jimmy Haslam by his daddy, Big Jim Haslam, who founded the company. Little Haslam nearly drove it into bankruptcy, and his father had to buy out his company’s travel centers in 2010.

After the merger, Pilot Flying J still went $4 billion into debt and ran a scam where it shaved off promised rebates to truckers, particularly targeting minority neighborhoods. Up to 5,500 customers were defrauded out of $56 billion. If not bought out by Warren Buffett’s company, it could have perhaps gone under.

Through all of this, scammer and failed businessman Jimmy Haslam was running Tennessee Football into the ground amidst the decade of dysfunction, strong-arming the university into every bad decision it made from 2009 to 2017 before the revolt over Schiano. Simply put, he is a failure. At everything.

This year, the Haslams finally cut their ties with the company, as Berkshire Hathaway now has total control. However, does anybody really believe they have no pull over the company? Why else would they announce this partnership to begin with, and why else would they get it over any other company?

Now, Rocky Top is in the hands of a corporation that has been heavily influenced by one of the worst people in sports. This is a dangerous situation to be in, and make no mistake, Haslam’s incompetence will live far beyond Haslam himself. A decade of dysfunction could turn into a century of dysfunction.

In an age of NIL, money is understandably necessary. Tennessee Football has been ahead of the curve with its initiatives. White is great at hiring, he understands how to raise the money, and he can push UT into the future. However, he made the wrong partnership here.