President Donald Trump appeared on the video board at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville on Saturday, and according to videos shared on social media, many of the more than 100,000 fans in the stands booed.
Several clips from the first quarter of the Texas-Tennessee game, with the top-ranked Longhorns up 7-0, show Trump on the stadium's big screen. In the images, he is seated in a suite, smiling and waving, with the presidential seal on both sides. As he came on screen, the stadium announcer introduced him as "the forty-fifth and forty-seventh President of the United States."
Critics online said they heard jeers.
"Crowd appears to BOOO loudly as Trump is shown on the Jumbotron at the Tennessee football game just now," wrote Brian Krassenstein, an anti-Trump commentator. The video he shared was credited to Emilie Rae Cochrane.
The account Donk Media went further.
"LMFAO - Donald Trump was just booed out of the building at the Texas Tennessee game," it wrote. "So soon as his face hit the camera the boos were loud. The announcers had to make quick small talk."
X user Lucas Sanders wrote, "Love this for him!" and added, "He must be embarrassed right now."
Another user, Evan, wrote that Trump was "clearly getting booed."
The crowd reaction is hard to measure from short clips, and some of the noise may have been cheers. Still, it stood out in Tennessee, a state Trump won easily in all three of his presidential campaigns.
The visit had already been controversial before kickoff. This week, Texas coach Steve Sarkisian told reporters his team had to prepare for its headsets to cut out whenever Trump moved around the stadium. He pointed to the College Football Playoff championship in January, when Trump's exit reportedly disrupted communications. The White House denied that happened.
Tennessee officials told fans to arrive early because of Secret Service screening at the gates.
