Beer must be a part of Klotsche

Chug, you Panthers, chug. When you’re heading into the Klotsche Center to watch the Milwaukee Panthers play basketball during the 2012-13 season, you’re going to have to wait until you leave before you can drink again. So chug.

That’s the word around Milwaukee Athletics these days, as they prepare to make the big move to the campus and the Klotsche Center. It’s not official, of course, but the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee may be the only school in the country that would need a press release to announce their fans won’t be able to buy beer at games.

Why is beer going to be unavailable? The reasons are well-known. College campuses shouldn’t be advertising alcohol. Selling beer is paramount to condoning underage drinking. It’s difficult enough to control binge drinking on campus, now you want to make it so students can buy more beer at games?

Do a simple google search for “beer and college athletics” and you’ll find each and every reason against selling beer at basketball games. But they’re wrong, and there are just as many reasons for Milwaukee to bring alcohol sales to campus basketball games as there are to leave the beer downtown.

Revenue, baby, revenue. The simple fact of the matter is that a very high percentage of concessions sales at sporting events are alcohol sales. At the U.S. Cellular Arena, the university had no revenue from those sales, because Levy Restaurants and the Wisconsin Center District pocketed all your beer money. So while it may not be lost revenue in the move, it still represents a major stream of cash that the university will not utilize.

Morality aside, the fact is that Milwaukee Athletics is in dire financial straits. It may not be in the same situation it was at the beginning of 2010 – go Charlie go – but this is not UW-Madison, where they can forget about beer sales and go back to counting ticket and merchandise money. UWM as a whole is an institution that has to tighten its belt in pretty much every department to survive; wouldn’t it be nice if athletics could loosen the belt after downing all the empty calories in beer money?

It’s not insignificant; conservatively, 1,800 season-ticket holders plus of-age students and casual fans are going to consume tens of thousands of dollars in profit in beer sales. For a program that recently cut the budget in every program to balance the overall budget, being able to be in the black at the end of the year should be a high priority. That is true, even if that means allowing something “beneath higher education” into the building.

Sending a message, a Milwaukee message. I know where Andy Geiger is coming from. He sees the effect alcohol abuse has had on fans at Ohio State, Stanford and Maryland and he doesn’t want his new employer to be party to binge drinking, something that recent studies have shown affects almost half of all college students. But this isn’t OSU, Stanford or Maryland. This is Milwaukee, where beer is ingrained into our culture. Coors Stadium may be home to the Rockies and Busch Stadium may be home to the Cardinals, but good lord, we named our team the Brewers. Miller, Schlitz and Pabst would be sad to see the enormous public university as well as denounce their product that built this city into the size needed for a school this big.

It can’t be about sending a message, because students in Milwaukee aren’t going to care. They spend their summers going to Brewer games in Miller Park. As they commute to campus, they see the revolving Miller sign, see the Leinenkugel’s mural and smell the yeast. This isn’t Columbus, or Palo Alto, or College Park. Beer is a major part of the identity of this city, the beer capital of America.

Banning beer won’t halt drunk fans. The other feel-good thing universities like to tell themselves is that by not allowing beer sales to fans in the stadium, they are somehow curbing alcohol consumption.

No, you’re not. The only thing you’re curbing is customers’ ability to have a quicker shopping experience at Otto’s and Gilbert’s on game days.

The fact of the matter is that students at UWM already drink. They already partake in binge drinking. Paying customers at games also drink. Alcohol is part of the sports identity, and not selling it at games to fulfill some academic mission of the university is naïve to say the least.

After several alcohol-related incidents involving students at Colorado State University in the early 2000’s, the school temporarily banned alcohol sales while they formed a committee to study drinking habits of students. Once the committee found that drinking was a much larger problem outside their stadium than inside, the university resumed alcohol sales at football games in 2005 and has been doing it ever since.

West Virginia’s athletic director, Oliver Luck, may be more famous for being Andrew’s father these days than running the Big XII’s newest program. But he made headlines in 2011 when he made the decision to sell beer on campus at West Virginia football games. The idea was that by controlling alcohol sales inside, the university could ensure that of-age Mountaineers fans would be able to do most of their drinking under the watchful eye of the university and not in the parking lots and frat houses where they have no control.

Luck received mixed reviews around the country for his decision, but the numbers were clear: game day arrests by campus police at WVU were cut by 35% from 117 in 2010 to 79 in 2011.

He found it to be a better gamble to sell the beer in a controllable, safe environment than it would be to let them go ahead and make every alcohol decision they have to make outside of WVU control.

And it would be the same at UWM. Would students buy beer at the Klotsche Center? Most definitely. Would some of those students get drunk? Sure. But you can bet without a shred of doubt that the drunk students who buy beer at the Klotsche Center were drunk long before they made their way inside the arena.

Selling beer might be a way to stop students from getting too hammered. I realize that is counter-intuitive, but having the ability to buy beer at the on-campus game might stop a student from thinking he has to sneak in a flask of hard liquor. What that student won’t be able to do is get drunk solely on arena-bought beer for less than $25.

The move to campus is already proving to be wrought with land mines for loyal season-ticket holders. Many of them are fans who would prefer to have the ability to drink a beer while they watch the game; simply pointing to shuttle bus destinations for pre-and-post-game alcohol consumption will not cut it, not in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

UWM has a unique opportunity here with the move to campus. Beer sales have happened at the Cell for years; allowing it to be sold at the Klotsche Center would just be continuing the policy familiar to fans of the program.

Before it is too late, the university has to wrap their head around the fact that distancing themselves from the problem of student drinking in the athletic setting does more harm than good. Having alcohol sales on campus brings at least part of student drinking under a controlled university environment, where they can preach measured consumption.

Disallowing alcohol sales is not the answer, that is merely passing the buck onto someone else. Students will buy alcohol and drink it regardless of whether they are able to make the purchase inside the stadium. What the university can do is instruct security at the student entrance to search bags and containers for alcohol; this way, alumni and faculty who are against alcohol sales will be able to at least see that it is made clear they are not allowed to bring alcohol in. Once inside, students can buy beer, but on a huge arena markup that will reduce the amount of beer sold but maintain the profit margins.

You’re never going to end student alcohol abuse. This just isn’t going to happen. No matter what the alcohol policy is at the Klotsche Center, students are going to drink no matter what. By bringing it to campus basketball, you’re controlling at least a portion of the alcohol consumption students do on game days.

Don’t punish the season-ticket holders to stick by some higher education ideal. Recognize the realities of our situation: we need money, we need to put a leash on student binge drinking, and by bringing alcohol into the Klotsche Center, you’re accomplishing both in a small way.