Virginia Tech And Tennessee Will Be Paid Big Money To Play A Football Game At A NASCAR Track

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Officials from Bristol Motor Speedway announced this week that Tennessee and Virginia Tech will play a college football game at the track in 2016, called "The Battle of Bristol." The game is expected to be so big that each school will make more than a typical college bowl game.

Bristol Motor Speedway seats more than 150,000 and each school will receive an allotment of 40,000 tickets to be sold. If the schools sell all of their tickets, they will be paid $4.3 million each according to Daniel Uthman of USAToday.com.

For comparison, a $4.3 million payout would be more than the payouts at 29 of the 35 bowl games last year.

The schools will still be paid handsomely even if they don't sell all of their tickets. Selling just 25,000 tickets would still guarantee each school $3.5 million. However, that is unlikely to be an issue as both schools are less than 150 miles from the track.

Here is an artist's rendering of what the field would look like...

AP

And here is what officials had laid out during the announcement showing the size of the field in relation to the track...

AP