College Football Turns to an Unlikely Savior: Beer, Beer and More Beer
Four Southeastern Conference schools are the latest to expand alcohol sales at football stadiums amid widespread attendance declines
By Brian Costa
August 16, 2019
There are still prohibition laws banning the sale of alcohol in many places in Arkansas, but the state university’s football stadium is no longer one of them. Beginning this fall, beer and wine will be sold in general seating areas of Razorback Stadium, where the announced attendance is down 14% over the past two years.
“I don’t know that someone is going to make a decision to come to a game just because alcohol is being served,” said Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek, “but we just can’t take that chance anymore.”
Between in-stadium sales and sponsorship deals, colleges and alcohol companies are increasingly becoming allies in trying to maintain interest in two products whose popularity is falling: football tickets and beer.
The Southeastern Conference this year lifted its longtime ban on alcohol sales in public seating areas, an indication of how even schools with the most devout fans are searching for ways to stem attendance declines. Arkansas joins Texas A&M, Louisiana State and Missouri in expanding booze sales, which had previously been restricted to suites and private club areas.
There are still many stadiums in the SEC and elsewhere where alcohol is not widely sold. But when the conference most rooted in socially conservative, football-crazed areas feels compelled to liberalize its drinking policy, it represents a clear shift in the prevailing thinking among administrators.
“The evolution we’re in now is all about the fan experience—safe atmospheres but providing something for everyone,” said Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork. “The alcohol piece provides that something for everyone.”
Colleges have long shunned alcohol out of a mix of public safety and optics concerns. Even if in-stadium sales could be handled legally and with limits, many schools were wary of being viewed as promoting drinking while dealing with underage and binge drinking on campus.
One of them was West Virginia, which only a decade ago was plagued with a growing binge-drinking problem at football games. Though alcohol wasn’t sold in the stadium, its re-entry policy allowed fans to leave during halftime and return.
“People would leave, go to their tailgates and booze up again for the second half,” said Oliver Luck, who was then the Mountaineers athletic director and is now chief executive of the XFL.
Luck proposed an experiment: sell beer inside the stadium and ban re-entry. In 2011, West Virginia became the first program in a major conference to sell alcohol in public areas.
The added annual revenue wasn’t massive for a major program—around $500,000, by Luck’s estimate—but the decline in alcohol-related incidents in and around the stadium was substantial. The use of “Code V”—security personnel parlance for vomit in the stands—fell by 35%, Luck said.
That led more schools to embrace a counterintuitive idea: beer sales as a public safety measure. Other major programs, including Ohio State and Oregon, have seen similar results in recent years.
But that only softened opposition to the policies among university presidents and board members. What has driven more schools to embrace wider alcohol sales is the growing sight of empty seats on Saturdays.
Average attendance for Division I Football Bowl Subconference schools has fallen for five consecutive years, according to the NCAA. It is down 11% from a decade ago. And as The Wall Street Journal reported last year, the actual attendance is often well below the publicly listed figure for any given game.
“The biggest thing that makes a difference in attendance is that ‘have to be there’ moment, and the feeling that watching on TV or on your phone is not going to capture the moment like being there in person,” said LSU senior associate athletics director Robert Munson.
Winning teams, marquee opponents and modernized stadiums can all help. But success is fickle, quality of the opponent varies and facilities upgrades can be costly. Selling alcohol is relatively simple and actually makes money.
“Of the things you can implement that do have a positive impact, it’s certainly one of those things we can most easily implement,” Munson said.
Though LSU ranked fifth in the nation with more than 100,000 fans at home games last year, Munson said fans have made clear for some time that they wanted to be able to buy alcohol in general seating areas.
Bjork, at Texas A&M, said millennial fans in particular seem more interested in shared social spaces at games than reserved seats, which could lead to more sports-bar type areas.
“Then alcohol is a part of it because it’s typically in a space like that,” Bjork said. “Just going to a game, sitting in your seat, that’s more traditional.”
The policy shift has created a bigger marketing opening for beer companies, who are pursuing—and increasingly losing—a similar demographic group. Though significant limitations remain—the SEC still bans alcohol signage at stadiums, for instance—colleges have become more open to partnering with beer companies where they can.
The University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2015 became the first college to license its own beer, partnering with a craft brewer to create Rajin’ Cajuns ale.
In addition to expanding stadium sales, Arkansas recently signed a sponsorship deal with Anheuser Busch worth around $400,000 per year.