Estimated read time: 9-10 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — The longstanding — and complex — relationship between alcohol and live spectator sports was on full display during the Utah Hockey Club's first-ever game in Salt Lake City last month.
Fans purchased a record amount of beer for an NHL or NBA game at the Delta Center, with team owner Smith Entertainment Group reporting $120,000 in sales during Utah's 5-2 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Oct. 8. Turns out the number SEG initially reported was a little low. The cost of beer built into the cost of Toyota Club seats at the arena wasn't factored into the total. Sales actually reached $150,000, said Chris Barney, SEG president of revenue and commercial strategy.
And beer was a constant presence on the massive in-arena screen. Throughout the game, the camera would be focused on fans chugging beer — including during the first-ever appearance of the "Bud Light Celly Cam" promotion. An ESPN reporter focused on the on-screen drinking, writing: "Goal horns. Goal songs. The pregame introductions. The breakout chants. The mascot. And the in-game highlights of thousands of people celebrating how someone drinks a beer. These are how an NHL team and its fans foster an identity."
(In subsequent games, the on-screen beer chug has been much less frequent. And when the Celly Cam made an appearance during a recent home game against Colorado, the focus was on fans acting out goal celebrations — referred to as a "celly" in hockey lingo).
"I would say that anything that happened after that (first Celly Cam on opening night) was a little bit organic," Barney said. "There's certainly not intention. The Bud Light Celly Cam absolutely is intentional once a game ... We always want people to be responsible."
Were the club able to sustain the opening-night volume over 41 home games, beer sales would generate more than $6 million for the season. Though the amount has dropped since the first game, beer sales have remained steady and SEG expects that to continue throughout the NHL season.
In addition to beer, water was a big seller at the first game. Vendors sold 4,200 bottles of Dasani, 3,000 more than at a Utah Jazz game. SEG dropped the price from $5.25 to to $2 per bottle at the Delta Center this year.
Alcohol sales at sports venues — now including a growing number of college stadiums and arenas — is big business across the "Big Four" sports in the United States. Like U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, sports fans like beer.
And while alcohol and sports don't always mix well, the relationship goes back nearly 150 years.
Beer and baseball: a brewing trend
The first professional baseball game was played in 1869. But with interest in the sport waning, the American Association in 1882 offered beer and Sunday games. The more staid National League dubbed its upstart new competitor the "Beer and Whiskey League." American Association team owners brushed off the nickname, as "most of them were brewery, distillery or saloon owners, and their interest wasn't necessarily inspired by a deep love for the game," as Rich Manning wrote in an article titled "The Long, Messy History of Booze and Sports Ownership."
The "Beer Ball League" folded after a decade but its insistence on the right to sell beer and liquor established the longstanding link between baseball and alcohol.
"With the rise and fall of the American Association in the 19th century, the selling of beer became a solid fixture in the national pastime, a symbol of the game itself, a controversial image with which owners of franchises, the fans and temperance and prohibition activists have struggled for over a century," Kevin Grace wrote in a paper titled, "Masculinity, Moguls, and Malt: The Shared History of Baseball and Alcohol."
Prohibition curtailed alcohol sales at American sports venues from 1920 to 1933. After Prohibition ended — Ohio, Pennsylvania and Utah ratified the 21st Amendment on the same day to put it over the top — beer quickly became a staple at many sporting events. Ballparks employed beer vendors as a source of additional revenue and a way to attract more fans.
Vendors roaming the stands shouting "Beer here" are now commonplace in major U.S. sports, particularly at football, baseball, basketball and hockey games, and sales are a significant part of the revenue for many sports venues. Advertising is prevalent in stadiums and arenas and during broadcasts
Teams and leagues have sponsorship deals with beer companies such as Anheuser-Busch's longstanding association with Major League Baseball.
The Alcohol Beverages Marketing Partnerships 2023 report found that during the 2022-23 season, beverage alcohol brands contributed $480 million in sponsorship revenue across NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL teams. Of each league's total team sponsorship revenue, MLB had the highest share at 9.9%, followed by the NHL (8.8%), NFL (8.4%) and NBA (6.1%), per the Beverage Industry.
How much do fans drink?
About 14.6 million beers (about 1.2 million gallons) are sold at major league baseball stadiums every year, according to one estimate.
Alcohol sales at the Texas Rangers ballpark for the month of August 2024 alone were $4.1 million, including $2.1 million for beer, according to the TABS (Tracking Alcoholic Beverage Sales) report, which relies on Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission data.
AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, reported over $36 million in alcohol sales in 2022, according to the Houston Chronicle.
In 2016, a Harris poll of 1,394 Americans who drink alcohol at least several times a year asked what type of adult beverage first comes to mind when thinking of 11 different sports.
Beer topped the list for football (75%), baseball (70%), car racing (55%) and hockey (51%). Those were followed, though to a lesser extent, by basketball (48%), boxing (39%), soccer (34%), beach volleyball (25%) and golf (17%).
Alcohol-related problems at sporting events
A University of Minnesota study conducted in 2008 examined the sale of alcohol in sports stadiums to underage and intoxicated fans.
Researchers had individuals who appeared younger than 21 years old — but were, in fact, 21 or older — and individuals feigning intoxication try to buy alcohol at 16 professional hockey, basketball, baseball and football venues in five states, totaling 159 attempts for each group.
The overall sales rate to the pseudo-underage buyers was 18% and to the pseudo-intoxicated buyers was 74%. The study found the odds of the sale occurring in the stands was 2.9 times higher than it was at the concession booths.
Traci Toomey, a University of Minnesota public health professor and corresponding author of the study, speculated that there are several reasons why people in the bleachers may have a better chance of "flying under the radar" than people at the concession stands.
"One reason may be that when alcohol is sold in the stands, it may be more difficult for the servers to hear or to see the customer to assess their age and level of intoxication," she said. "The servers may feel pressure to make the sale quickly in the stands, to get to all of the customers, and to get out of the way of fans who are trying to watch the game, giving the server less time to do the proper assessment."
Another University of Minnesota study in 2011 found four in 10 fans leaving professional baseball and football games drank alcohol during the event and 8% percent were legally drunk, a Minnesota Star-Tribune story reported.
The researchers conducted blood-alcohol content tests of 362 adults who attended 13 pro baseball and three pro football games. It found 40% of the participants had a BAC ranging from 0.005 to 0.217. Those who tailgated before the game had 14 times the odds of having a BAC of 0.08, the legal driving limit in most states. Fans at Monday night football games were more likely to have positive BACs compared to those at all other games, the study found.
Last year, Anheuser-Busch, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and Uber launched a "Decide to Ride" campaign through partnerships with 22 professional sports teams, encouraging fans to not drink and drive. Nearly 12,000 people redeemed Uber ride-share discount codes offered through the program This year, the coalition introduced the initiative to colleges and universities nationwide.
Concerns about excessive drinking, fan behavior, drunk driving and safety have led teams to take measures such as limiting the number of beers per customer and cutting off alcohol sales at a certain point during games.
Do college sports venues sell alcohol?
While beer and alcohol sales have long been staples in pro sports venues, it's relatively new but growing in the college game.
An Associated Press analysis from 2023 of Power Five conference schools and Notre Dame found that 55 of 69 of them — 80% — now sell alcohol in the public areas of their stadiums on game days. Of the remaining schools, some sell alcoholic drinks in nonpublic areas of the venue such as suites, while others do not sell any at all. In 2018, only 20 schools allowed the practice.
The University of Utah is among schools that don't sell alcohol in its stadium or arena.
Public universities fall under the "public building" section in Utah alcohol law which says liquor may not be consumed in a public building or stadium. Public buildings are not allowed to sell liquor such as vodka, high point beer and wine. Public buildings can sell 5% alcohol-by-volume beer and other approved seltzer products if they have a third party concessions operator that holds a beer recreation license with the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services. Public buildings can only sell liquor for specific events when they apply for and obtain an event permit from the state.
Universities around the country have reaped big money selling beer in their sports venues.
In 2023, more than 278,000 beers were sold at the University of Tennessee's Neyland Stadium, totaling more than $3.3 million. Iowa pulled in $3.2 million in its first year in 2022 across all of its venues.
ESPN reported last August that cash-strapped athletic departments outside the Power Five conferences are turning to beer sales to generate revenue. North Texas, SMU and Troy University started selling beer this season.
"Every institution is looking at how they can increase revenue streams, and alcohol is one of those," Jeff Schemmel, president of consulting firm College Sports Solutions LLC, told ESPN. "Everything is on the table."
A study published in the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine last year compared the number of alcohol-related emergency calls at the University of Iowa's 65,000-seat Kinnick Stadium during the 2019 and 2021 football seasons. The school started selling beer at home games in 2021.
In 2021, there were a total of 505 calls to local ambulance services on football Saturdays, and 29% of them were for alcohol-related incidents, down from 36% of 456 calls in 2019.
"The reason for this outcome is unclear, but it is possible that fans drank less at tailgate parties knowing they could consume more once the game started," researchers surmised. "Long lines and a two-beverage limit at stadium concessions may have kept patrons from consuming excessively."
