If there's a topic folks in the Mountain State sit up straight for it's beer.
When WVU decided to sell beer at its football games back in 2011, headlines were made. Actually, good headlines were made. Not only were concession sales up ($516,000 in beer sales in the first year alone), calls, arrests and charges filed to police were down after the school canceled the "pass-out" policy. Once you went into the game, you could not leave and return.
In March, the school announced the policy has been expanded to basketball games. In recent years, only club-level patrons could purchase beer. Now, if the Coliseum is deemed open for business, the general public will be able to buy beer as well.
In Huntington, Marshall athletic director Mike Hamrick has been watching. He sees that, according to WVU, the Mountaineers have made $2.88 million selling beer over five years. And it seems Thundering Herd fans are getting closer to the option at their football games.
"We have not made a decision yet," Hamrick said. "We're in the process of evaluating it. We do sell beer in the stadium, but it's in the Big Green Room and people aren't allowed to take it out into the stadium.
"We're going to continue selling beer in the Big Green Room, but now we're trying to decide whether people can bring it into the stadium and whether we will sell it in particular areas. We haven't made that decision yet."
Hamrick has a little different situation on his hands than that in Morgantown. Tailgating in the Joan C. Edwards Stadium both before the game and at halftime is a time-honored tradition. Also, ticket sales are more of a struggle in Huntington. The last thing Hamrick wants to do is tick off those buying season tickets.
"We're not going to stop the pass-out policy," he said. "Most schools don't allow that, but they've allowed that here forever and it's not something we're going to change. Our decision is solely whether we're going to sell beer or not."
Hamrick has been deliberate.
"The decision is whether the revenue is worth any headaches, if we have any headaches, which I don't think we will," he said. "We're going to take it slow at first because it's never been done here. It's my understanding it went well in Morgantown [at WVU]. We've looked at other schools as well. What they did in Morgantown was stop the pass-outs. We're not going to do that.
"We're trying to decide whether to allow people to take beer out into the stadium from the Big Green Room and whether to sell beer in the stadium. We hope to have that decided in the next two or three weeks."
Hamrick said there are options to just selling beer to the general public.
"In the SEC, most schools don't sell beer except in premium seating areas," he said. "That's something we're looking into. Do you just sell beer in premium chairback areas? Do you sell it in the whole stadium? Are there sections in the stadium that are alcohol-free for those that don't want that? We're analyzing all that."
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While Hamrick doesn't want to tick off those buying season tickets, he does want to spur MU fans who aren't buying tickets.
"We have to keep getting financial support," he said. "We have to sell more tickets. We don't sell enough tickets. For as good as our football program has been the last three or four seasons under Doc [Holliday], we don't sell enough tickets.
"As good as our schedules have been - and as good as they're going to be - we should be selling more."
Hamrick sighed.
"In the next five years coming to Huntington are North Carolina State, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Boise State, Navy, East Carolina and some of our old rivals, like Miami of Ohio, Ohio and Appalachian State," he said. "We have great football schedules. We have to sell more tickets and raise more money. It's getting more and more expensive to run a Division I athletic program."
The hope within MU is to keep the athletic program shiny in case openings pop up in a conference like, say, the American Athletic.
"We're slowly getting better competitively because of our facilities," Hamrick said. "It used to be football, football, football. Now, we're a broad-based program.
"You never know what's going to happen. I was in a lot better shape when I was single than I am married. That's because you never knew when that pretty girl was going to walk in the door. You never know what's going to happen.
"The pressure here, though, is what we put on ourselves. And, with the facilities here now, we're putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to win. We just have to generate that revenue to do it."