CHAPEL HILL -- At UNC-Chapel Hill, tailgating traditionally takes place outside Kenan Stadium. But with an $80 million stadium addition in the works, athletics officials now want to move the party inside.
The university is adding about 3,000 seats in private suites and club boxes and wants to sell beer and wine in them as a marketing enticement to corporate honchos and wealthy alums.
No liquor would be sold and no beer or wine would be available in general seating or student sections of the stadium.
Still, the sale of beer and wine at the stadium would be a change for UNC-CH, where athletic venues have never sold any sort of alcohol. (The airplane bottles of whiskey that spectators sneak into games are, of course, unsanctioned.)
Across the nation, universities routinely sell beer and wine at sporting events, though many restrict it to private suites. In the Atlantic Coast Conference, only Duke and UNC-CH prohibit all alcohol use in athletic venues.
As budgets have tightened, some universities have loosened their booze restrictions to raise revenue. Critics say universities should stay out of the alcohol business.
"I acknowledge there's a philosophical issue, and I acknowledge it's a change in what our policy has been," said Dick Baddour, UNC-CH's athletics director. "I don't see it as out of step with what you find in arenas all across the country."
The university is planning 20 suites and other seating in Kenan's east end zone.
The project would include an attached academic support center for athletes, which replaces the old field house that is on the same site. A new strength and conditioning center is also planned.
Revenue from the sale of the suites and private boxes will pay for the expansion. Suites will sell for $50,000 per season, while the season-long lease of a club level seat - which includes access to a climate-controlled lounge with food and drink service - would run from $1,500 to $2,500 each.
Those prices don't include game tickets, which are also required.
Baddour said he isn't sure whether beer and wine would be sold in these private settings or given out as part of the ticket price. Another option, which N.C. State employs, is to restrict beer and wine to private suites and allow the suite's occupants to distribute it.
Baddour has talked up the beer-and-wine idea on campus and there appears to be institutional support. Robert Winston, chairman of the board of trustees, said Friday that the move makes sense.
And McKay Coble, a dramatic art professor and chairwoman of the university faculty, said she has no objections, either.
"For the kind of price these things are selling for, people buying them will want to continue their tailgate parties," Coble said. "The fact that they're in private boxes will keep it contained, philosophically and physically."
Bad message?
But the use of alcohol at university events is, in general, a bad idea given the level of drinking on college campuses, argues Henry Wechsler, the lead investigator at the Harvard University School of Public Health's College Alcohol Study.
"It's certainly legal," Wechsler wrote in an e-mail. "They are of age, but with alcohol presenting a problem at most colleges, what kind of message are they sending to students? You can't get through a football game without drinking?"
