Deep Dive: Should SDSU allow beer sales inside Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium?
Short answer: yes but the Board of Regents must change its policy first.
Boise State moves to beer sales
This week, Boise State University announced that it would sell beer and hard seltzer at all BSU home games, starting this fall. The decision, one that has been a hot-button topic in Boise for many, many years, is long overdue.
“Our goal is to provide an elite fan experience on game day,” Jeremiah Dickey, athletic director for Boise State, said in a press release. “Bronco Nation directly impacts our student-athletes, and ultimately, the outcome of games. My hope is that today’s announcement continues to generate excitement and helps us fill the stadium.”
Boise State, home of the Blue Turf, was once known for an intimidating home venue. Now, the stadium is often half-empty come the third quarter. Why? Football fatigue, too-many student tickets, other entertainment options, the list of possible reasons is long. An interesting statistic that allows further evidence is the downward trend of attendance:
2012 – 35,404 avg. home attendance
2017 – 31,126
2018 – 33,068
2019 - 32,090
Home attendance can fluctuate year to year for a variety of reasons, whether that be weather, opponents, or how good the team is that year. However, this trend shows that home attendance has consistently been declining in recent years. This is not unique to Boise State, football attendance across the country has gotten lower and lower.
I took a class at Boise State in 2017 regarding fundraising and sports management. One of the projects we were asked to do was look at football attendance and theorize why people were not showing up to the games and what could be done to reverse the trend. The reason we theorized fans were not showing up was the late start times (9:30 p.m. locally for kickoff due to the ESPN contract) and a solution was to allow beer sales to attract a younger crowd that would be more willing to stay later. Further, we theorized that many students and young adults left the game early to go drink at bars downtown, catching the second half wherever they went. Beer sales, we thought, would keep people at the game for longer. Former Boise State AD Curt Apsey was lukewarm to the idea and the Idaho Board of Regents opposed the idea as well. Last summer, the Idaho Board of Regents decided they would let the universities in the state decide if they would allow beer sales at athletic events. During that time, new AD Jeremiah Dickey, known best for his fundraising efforts at Baylor, was hired. Dickey subsequently decided that beer and hard seltzer would be made available for purchase this fall at all BSU home games. This move will hopefully generate some excitement, fill the stadium, and keep students (who are of legal drinking age) and fans in the stadium longer.
Arguments against beer sales
The argument against beer sales at home football games has long been that this will increase belligerent activity and subsequently, crime inside the stadium. This is fair; beer correlates to drunkenness and drunkenness correlates to higher crime rates. While this is fairly clear logic, it is not supported by research. In 2016, North Carolina graduate student, Arthur Bane, conducted his master’s thesis(https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/downloads/ng451j88b?locale=en)on this very topic, exploring whether alcohol sales was correlated to higher rates of crime on gamedays. He made this recommendation: “Administrators can use this study’s findings to aid their decision to sell alcohol off of the suggested evidence that on a national scale criminal offenses, alcohol related incidents, and in-stadium offenses do not increase after alcohol sales are implemented at on-campus football stadiums.”
Other arguments against beer sales is that beer inside the stadium will promote binge drinking among the student population. Now, hear me out even though this is a groundbreaking revelation: students already binge drink and will continue to binge drink whether beer is sold in the stadium or not. Don’t believe me? Cruise around the north end of Brookings on a gameday in the fall and look to see if you see anybody drinking. The odds of seeing binge drinking among students is -100000. Odds so bad even the squarest bettor wouldn’t add it to his 10-team parlay. The argument that beer sales will promote binge drinking among students does not hold water and in my opinion, should not be considered when discussing beer sales inside college football stadiums.
SDSU and Beer Sales
The South Dakota Board of Regents, like Idaho’s Board of Regents, are the policymakers behind what universities in the state can and cannot do. As of right now, the current policy, reflected in the manual as number 6:14 (https://www.sdbor.edu/policy/documents/6-14.pdf) prohibits the sale on campuses with two exceptions:
1. The first exception allows the issuance of an alcoholic beverage license to engage in the periodic retail sale of malt beverages or wine for consumption on-site at a location and time, authorized by the Board of Regents, that involves the performing arts, intercollegiate athletics, fund raising, a reception, a conference, or an occasional or scheduled event at a facility used for performing arts, intercollegiate athletics, events, or receptions.
2. The second exception allows the issuance of a special events license for a special event authorized by the Board of Regents that involves the performing arts, intercollegiate athletics, fund raising, a reception, a conference, or an occasional or scheduled event.
The policy also gives the authority to the chief executive office of the university. It further says “Except as otherwise allowed by paragraph 3.B.3 below, any Permit issued for student athletic events (including without limitation NCAA, NIT, NAIA and intramural student athletic events) occurring on Institutional Facilities is limited to specially designated box seat or loge areas to which access is controlled and limited to such patrons, and may not include the sale of alcoholic beverages in any other areas (including without limitation general admission areas).”
SDSU, therefore, is allowed to sell beer and wine in the 24 executive suites inside Dana J. Dykhouse stadium. These suites are often purchased by wealthy businessman or gifted to generous donors, all of whom make up a tiny percentage of the overall attendance. Attendance at SDSU, like most of the country, is on a downward trajectory. The Dkyhouse opened in 2016, replacing old Coughlin Alumni. It’s official capacity is 19,340. The average home attendance is as follows:
2016 – 13,753
2017 – 11,994
2018 – 10,178
2019 – 10,971
The kicker? In 2015, the last year before the Dykhouse opened, SDSU averaged 12,899 per home game. So what do these stats tell us? People aren’t showing up to football games anymore, regardless of how good the Jacks are. Further, the Dykhouse fits nearly 20,000 and in 2019 the average attendance was 10,971. That’s almost half empty and I would venture a guess that in most second halves, it looked almost 3/4th’s empty. I don’t think that administrators at SDSU envisioned a half-empty stadium when they spent over 60 million on a new stadium.
What should be done?
SDSU and administrators need to make a concerted effort to lobby the Board of Regents and revise policy number 6:14 that would allow chief executive officers presiding over the university the autonomy over beer sales throughout the entire stadium, not just executive suites. Other schools in the Missouri Valley Football Conference have already taken those steps (Illinois State and Youngstown State) and allowed beer to be sold in general admission areas. By allowing beer sales, SDSU would (hopefully) sell more tickets, keep fans at the game longer (creating a much better atmosphere) and most importantly, create a new revenue stream. SDSU is already behind the eight-ball presiding in a smaller town (compare Brookings to Fargo or Grand Forks or Cedar Falls). SDSU needs to use every possible revenue stream in order to keep up. College athletics is an arms-race, an expensive one at that, and SDSU must take advantage of this possible revenue stream as soon as possible.
Attendance stats found here : https://www.ncaa.org/championships/statistics/ncaa-football-attendance