Getting a Cold One on Campus

Imagine sitting at a college football game and deciding that you would like to go purchase an alcoholic beverage only to find out that such drinks are not permitted or sold at the event. This is the case if you are attending games at roughly 100 division 1 institutions. As of July 2012, only 21 programs sell beer at college football games and of those 21, only 11 of such programs play their games on campus. (http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2012/07/10/good-question-how-many-colleges-sell-beer-at-sports-stadiums/) The other 10 that sell alcohol all play at professional stadiums that are located off of campus.  Many colleges are now facing the question of whether the increase in income for the program offsets the idea of making beer that much more accessible to fans.

The biggest worry that institutions are having is whether the increased ease of alcohol would result in an increased number of drunken issues and cause problems during the games. The two lines of thinking in this question are that by selling alcohol it will be easier to regulate the amount of alcohol being consumed because people will not feel the need tailgate as heavily which would make the sale of alcohol a good idea. The opposite viewpoint is that the sale of beer will only increase the alcohol consumption, particularly among underage students, at events and result in more issues with police.

The additional police issue theory has been debunked by Oliver Luck and West Virginia University. West Virginia decided to begin selling alcohol at their football games this past season and saw not only an income increase of 700,000.00 but also saw a decrease in police reports based on alcohol consumption by 30%.  The overall police cases dropped 65% throughout the first four games. (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-09/football-beer-taps-add-safety-700-000-to-west-virginia-university-sports.html)

While this notion of making the access of alcohol easier would mean less issues with drunkenness seems to be off, the idea behind it makes sense. If a student wishes to be drunk while watching the game with no ability to purchase a drink during the game, they will be forced to binge drink beforehand and show up drunk or illegally bring alcohol into the stadium. If the alcohol is already in the stadium, the students are less likely to binge drink before and more likely to purchase in the stadium.

                

From a strictly money viewpoint, if people are going to find ways to drink during athletic events, the department might as well make money off of the alcohol.  Also, what allowing the purchase of beer during the game limits is the amount of people that leave the game at halftime or early to go back to tailgate further. (http://www.freakonomics.com/2012/09/06/can-selling-beer-cut-down-on-public-drunkenness-a-new-marketplace-podcast/)

                

It is my belief that alcohol should be sold at all college sporting events because it will allow the programs to make more money with the selling of pouring rights and increased concession income. With the condition that most athletic departs are currently in, every school could use the boost in income.