Arkansas is applying for a liquor license to sell beer at Razorback – to some folks, anyway.
Arkansas will add its name to the growing list of college selling alcoholic beverages at football stadiums beginning this fall. According to a report from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, the school will begin selling beer and wine to club seat holders at Razorback Stadium this fall, pending the approval of a liquor license from the state.
While the selling part is new, keeping the devil’s beverage away from the hoi polloi is SOP in the SEC.
While the Southeastern Conference does not allow the sale of alcohol in non-premium seating in the SEC, skybox and club seating patrons have been allowed to have alcoholic drinks at seven other SEC stadiums for years. Both Alabama and Auburn allow premium seat holders to bring in their own alcohol.
Maybe rich folks hold their likker better.
In any event, the article notes that twenty schools across the country now sell beer and wine to non-premium seat holders. I bet that changes in the SEC over the next ten years. It’s just another revenue stream that doesn’t need to go a-wastin’.
If’n I wuz a Arkansas club-seater I spec I would need a drink or two to get through a game…based on last year’s performance, the drinking is gonna get heavier before it slacks off. Good way to help continue to make the payments on yer debt service instead of spending the reserve fund.
LikeLike
You and your fancy vocabulary Bluto. I had to look up what “hoi polloi” means.
Fortunately I knew what you meant by “likker” though 😉
LikeLike
Who needs seat licenses or the Hartman Fund when you can just sell $8 beers at Sanford Stadium to the masses?
In all seriousness, I doubt that it would make enough money to outraise the Hartman, but it would make a TON of cash. And I don’t know that it would cause that many more problems. Anecdotally, anyway, the people who generally cause the most problems at games or after are sneaking in their own booze to begin with.
LikeLike
The plebs and riff raft in Louisville have had beer and wine at Churchill Downs for ever at CF games.
LikeLike
I don’t remember there ever being a football game at Churchill Downs…
LikeLike
Most of the folks sneaking it in are going to continue to sneak it in instead of paying $8 per beer.
LikeLike
I know I will.
LikeLike
I’m sure I’m in the minority here, but I have no problem with what Arkansas is doing whatsoever. Generally speaking, the wealthier you are, the more educated/better behaved you are; and thus the less likely you’re going to get utterly loaded and cause myriad problems at games.
I’ve attended numerous NFL, college, CBB, and even NHL games with suite and club access, and I’ve yet to have any bad experiences there whatsoever. And remember the suites, in most of my experiences except one, featured free alcohol; thus the temptation is certainly there to easily get drunk without costing you any additional money. Plus you can do it in relative privacy with other conveniences such as bathrooms being available on a whim.
Yet all my bad experiences with other (drunk) fans have always been in the regular seats, in which the fans have to actually pay exorbitant costs to get drunk (or maintain it). Just as you’re far less likely to have to endure drunk, obnoxious behavior on a Saturday night at a nice restaurant compared to a, say, Longhorns or Taco Mac; the same applies to premium seats compared to more typical ones.
LikeLike
BWAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Oh wait, you were serious about that?
The wealthier among us find it easier to fix things after they get utterly loaded. That’s about the only difference.
LikeLike
Stereotype #blogban
/sarcasm 😛
LikeLike
If ya ask me, back in the late 70’s it was always the trust puppy frat boys like Marmalard and Neidermeyer who caused the biggest problems at the games.
LikeLike
Some people are more equal than others aren’t they? A lot of southern legislators have decided that richer (ehem… whiter is good too) voters make better decisions at the polls too. Frankly, I think we ought to reconsider the whole idea of democracy and egalitarianism that the country was founded upon. Of course, if we need people to shoot at foreign people we don’t like, we’ll make sure to include the lesser people as I found from experience that poor uneducated (often browner) people make better soldiers. Better to leave the rich in the club seats with their 18 year old scotch.
Oh, by the way, gfy.
LikeLike
Nice…especially the last sentence. I must have struck a nerve. FWIW, the suite I often share for UVA basketball with 7 others includes an Asian, African American couple, a Brazilian, a white male and a white couple.
LikeLike
I’m sure some of your best friends are black. Doesn’t mean that you aren’t an asshole. Prejudice against people because they aren’t as wealthy as you or educated as you is not superior to a person who is prejudiced against people because of their race, religion, sexual orientation etc… The idea that some people are better than others based on any factor other than individual character is offensive, period. Prejudice in favor of the rich and educated is even more offensive. As somebody who was born in poverty but lives quite well now, I can tell you that there is a lot of truth in Lennon’s lyrics: “There is room at the top they are telling you still, but first you must learn how to smile as you kill, if you want to be like the folks on the hill.” In my experience about 95% of the people aren’t worth the powder it would take to blow their ass up and I haven’t found one shared characteristic between them other than they are all human.
LikeLike
Not my battle here, but that seems a tad of an over reaction to what 3rd and Grantham wrote.
LikeLike
Yes comrade, we should send the capitalist dogs to their graves!
LikeLike
No we should proclaim the rich as superior. Ordained by God to rule the rest of us. I’ve heard of such as system. Some libtards revolted on their ass and established a country on the principle that we were all endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights or some such nonsense. I think, God forbid, he also meant poor people.
LikeLike
You’re the only one calling names—you told me to do something that is a physical impossibility (unless you’re a hermaphrodite or extremely well endowed), followed by the a-hole word. Now tell me, who exactly is coming off like the jerk here?
Besides, I never mentioned race or anything of the sort; not to mention that you have no clue what my race or ethnicity is anyway. You did an awful lot of assuming combined with gross generalizations in your responses, which I find quite ironic yet hilarious.
LikeLike
LOL…gotta give that a +1
LikeLike
“I think we ought to reconsider the whole idea of democracy and egalitarianism that the country was founded upon”
What country are you referring to?
LikeLike
I am going to agree with your conclusion without agreeing with your reasoning. I think the social cost and for rich people who screw up and get their names in the paper is greater, and in general people who have nothing to lose (say, in a lawsuit or otherwise) tend to be more willing to mix it up than others.
I also think people who tend to want to fist fight tend to have less control over their emotions, which is critical if you want to make your way up the ladder. So being poor may not make you more likely to fight, but being more likely to fight might make you poor(er).
Also, people tend to seek alternate methods of power when they can’t get power in the socially acceptable ways. The rich have already achieved a level of status – in a sense they have less to prove. The poor, however, tend to seek power and self-worth wherever they can. If they can’t make money or get the girl, they may want to prove their manhood and worth in other ways.
Finally, you put a rich guy in a sawdust bar and he’ll be more likely to fight than if you put a poor guy in a seat at the opera. It’s just less acceptable to fight in upper class environments, e.g. skyboxes, and people tend to tailor their behavior somewhat to their surroundings.
LikeLike
All the social science I’ve read backs up what you’ve said. It’s not saying “the rich are morally superior” to say “the rich are less likely to get in a brawl”
LikeLike
Alcohol sales are all well and good, but it’s doob vending that’ll really make programs go from red to black (though not the eyes, of course).
LikeLike
I agree that alcohol for premium seating and suites are fine, folks should get something extra for the money they pay. I also think selling beer to the rest of the fans is a good idea, just limit it to two beers per customer. By the time they stand in the Sanford lines a few times, two beers each trip per couple will be metabolized. Use the extra money revenues to help secure a loan on the IPF, just get the damned thing started.
LikeLike
I know this doesn’t apply if they only sell to club seating at Sanford but if they expand beyond that, some of the concessions areas would need serious upgrades before they attempt to sell alcohol. Hell, those concession areas already need serious upgrades without the complication of selling alcohol.
LikeLike
She. It. We aint drunk, we just drankin.
LikeLike
Where was that college game a few years ago that had a fistfight on the club concourse? I think it was a BCS bowl.
LikeLike
Just another opportunity to gouge the fan. Anybody getting drunk on $8 beer has got to be in the hoi polio, and/or stupid.
LikeLike
A little alcohol can’t hurt post-game fund-raising efforts, either.
LikeLike
If you don’t drink enough before the game to be good for the whole game, you’re not doing it right.
LikeLike
Marijuana will be legal to smoke in GA before UGA allows beer sales
LikeLike
We have beer and wine in the boxes at Sanford already. At least in the UGA owned boxes.
LikeLike
I worked at 5 Points Bottle for a while a couple years back. There is a STAGGERING amount of liquor being served in the luxury boxes, judging from the pre-orders we had ready to go at open every saturday morning. UGA would be well served to take a look at the cost-benefits of serving booze inside Sanford.
LikeLike
“UGA would be WELL SERVED to take a look at the cost-benefits of serving booze inside Sanford.”
I see what you did there.
LikeLike