As the point man for the management of Virginia Tech's athletic facilities during one of the biggest construction booms in the school's history, Tom Gabbard has heard his fair share of pitches from prospective contractors over the years.
Gabbard, Tech's senior associate athletic director for facilities and operations, came to Blacksburg with Jim Weaver back in 1998 and he's helped shepherd projects like the renovations to Lane Stadium and the construction of the massive "Beamer Barn" football practice facility from conception to completion in his time in the athletic department.
Accordingly, he's been around the block when it comes to reviewing designs for new athletic facilities, getting a glimpse at just about every concept drawing imaginable from architects and construction companies hoping to match Tech's unique architectural style.
Now, as the department prepares for another round of ambitious athletic facility renovations, Gabbard told The Key Play that he expects that experience to come in handy in the coming months.
"One of the very first meetings you have, they call it architectural vocabulary, so you say, 'We want it to look like campus, an existing facility that we have,' and we also tell them 'If you don't put any Hokie Stone on it, you'll never get it built,'" Gabbard said. "Nine times out of 10, a guy comes in and he says, 'Now, the guy that's gonna lead this project is a Tech grad,' like that's supposed to mean something, and it does, but they're all Tech grads.
"The beautiful thing is we have a great engineering school and a great architecture school, so any company that's any good has got some Tech grads on it."
Indeed, Gabbard says he's hearing from plenty of architects and engineers with Blacksburg roots these days as the department kicks a whole series of projects into high gear. Gabbard and AD Whit Babcock unveiled the department's roadmap for the future of its facilities at a meeting of Tech's governing Board of Visitors in late March, and in the next few weeks many of those construction efforts will get started in earnest.
From the Beamer Barn to Baseball
Unsurprisingly, the project that's attracted the most notice from that presentation is the one with the biggest price tag: the major overhaul of the baseball team's English Field. The Richmond-based Union Bank & Trust just chipped in $3.5 million for naming rights to the stadium, which will help fund the facelift for the park.
Gabbard estimates that the total cost for the project will be anywhere from $12 million to $14 million, but he thinks the strength of the rest of the ACC in the sport makes the effort a critical one for head coach Pat Mason as he tries to drag the Hokies out of the conference's basement.
"You look at what's going on in the rest of your conference, you feel like you've really got to make some improvements in the facilities, because you're recruiting against people that have more elaborate facilities," Gabbard said. "And it didn't hurt that the AD's an old baseball player, that helps. So in developing that, we had Union step forward with a really nice opportunity to kind of give us a gigantic seed gift to kind of do some serious thinking on it."
As of now, Gabbard said the department is still in the early stages of figuring out what exactly the upgrades to the facility will entail, though he expects additional seats, modernized concession stands and a new scoreboard to be part of the upgrade.
But he notes that he can't say with certainty what the renovation will look like exactly just yet because of how the department is designing the project. Instead of just sketching out plans for the renovation and then accepting bids from companies to work on the project, he said Tech is using the "design-build" contracting method, which centralizes planning and construction responsibilities by giving firms the chance to present Tech with their own designs and letting the department pick the plan it likes best before moving forward with construction.
English Field Renovation | Virginia Tech Facilities Master Plan
Gabbard said that the department used that method as it worked to solicit designs for the indoor football practice facility last year, with great success.
"Whenever you do these, your coach says 'I want what the Atlanta Falcons have, I want what Florida State has, what the New England Patriots have,' and we say 'Fine, but what do you really want?'" Gabbard said. "And you hear, 'Well, we want it bigger than a regular football field, high enough to punt in and all the graphics in the world to sizzle and we want it built the day after tomorrow.' Obviously all those things can't happen.
"And so what we did is, we came up with a criteria document, which said 'Here's what we want it to be, it's gonna be this high, this big, this wide, we want flat walls down the side, we don't want regular steel beams,' and we turned it over to (contractors)."
That process helped generate three designs that the department seriously considered, but Gabbard said they settled on the one that they felt was the most creative solution that was also in line with the university's look. He noted that the design-build method gave them more flexibility in choosing an architect and construction company with a real vision for the project, beyond just picking "the cheapest guy and lowest bid."
"You'd love to have the cheap guy get it, but you're not locked into it, so when guys get a little creative, you may want to spend a little more," Gabbard said. "And what they ended up making was a building that didn't end up looking anything like a typical fieldhouse for football practices that you'd see anywhere in the country, it's really a signature piece."
With proof that design-build could work at Tech, Gabbard says the department sent requests for proposals to "20 major architectural firms in the country" for the baseball facility facelift, and have since identified a handful of companies that seem to have the right qualifications and plans for the project.
The department then brought in those architects, each teamed with a builder, for a series of presentations on April 27.
"Based on the four teams that we had, one of them's sorta close to what we want, the other three are not, but they had great ideas," Gabbard said.
But Gabbard said he's still optimistic about the project's direction, since that initial meeting was just "to see 'Are you thinking the way we're thinking?'" from the firms. Those four finalists will take Tech's suggestions into consideration and present the department with designs in June. Though the renovations may be many months away from actually happening, Gabbard is anxiously awaiting the project's results.
"We're gonna end up with a really neat looking facility," Gabbard said. "And with all that (Route) 460 stuff going on and a new interchange coming in, that's gonna be the first signature piece on campus that you see. Of course, you can see the stadium in the background, it'll sit up above that big VT in the hedges, so it gives the teams an opportunity to get their name on something that's very visible."
Plotting the Futures of Cassell and Lane
Even as those efforts progress, the department is working on several less visible shorter-term projects aimed at improving fan experiences in the buildings hosting the team's revenue sports.
Since Babcock's arrived in Blacksburg, the department's put a huge emphasis on overhauling the interior of Cassell Coliseum (adding everything from courtside seats to an enormous ceiling fan) and Gabbard said that process will continue in the next few months.
He feels most of those changes have been beneficial ones for the building so far (hailing the courtside seats as "revenue producers" and the shift of ADA-compliant seating off the floor as a huge boon for patrons with disabilities) but he sees the next step for Cassell being an upgrade to many of the arena's seats.
"Those old seats are pretty neat, 15 years ago when we redid those, the old Cassell, all those seats were painted three colors: the ugliest white, the ugliest green, and the ugliest maroon in the world," Gabbard said. "So we were gonna replace them all, and for a million dollars, we were gonna replace every seat in Cassell, and they stripped one of them down and it was elmwood, and there's no more elmwood in the world to speak of, so we said 'Let's just put them all back and make them all elmwood,' and that was beautiful for a while, but the world's rear ends are getting a little bigger these days, so we're gonna fix that."
The issue of America's rapidly expanding rear-ends aside, Gabbard said the change will be focused on making seats in the "three center sections" up to the portals to the concourse on each of Cassell's long sides more comfortable for fans.
"Next summer, we're working with four vendors now, we'll take those seats out and replace them with a much more comfortable, bigger seat," Gabbard said. "Those rows now have 20 seats in them, they'll go to 18, but it'll be a 21-inch seat, it'll be a high-backed seat with a cup holder, padded, and it'll be a premium seat, and if that goes well, we may take that theme and take it all the way around."
But Gabbard said the department is also eyeing changes to the building's exterior, particularly along the west side of the arena that runs parallel to Beamer Way. Though he's only in the preliminary phases of designing it, he envisions constructing a new entrance on that side of Cassell to shield fans from Blacksburg's whipping winds.
West-Side Entrance to Cassell Coliseum | Virginia Tech Facilities Master Plan
"We really need to do something, and we will," Gabbard said. "If you're here on a cold winter night, and you come in that gate, and you're sitting in any of the aisle seats in rows 6, 8 and 10, the cold wind, you've got to have your coat on until the game starts. So I want to take that further out into the sidewalk area, not all the way into the road, but move it out. I love the arches, so I don't want to lose that, but tuck it underneath there, have concessions, an entranceway, well lit."
Gabbard noted that that plan is still strictly conceptual at the moment, but he's working with architects to sketch out what it could look like. Once he can knock that project out, he thinks another overhaul of the concourse is in order, after the department last tinkered with it 15 years ago.
"We'll work on the concourse next, and we're talking about maybe some club positions in there, we're talking to an architect about how to do that, we've got a couple ideas," Gabbard said. "We think there's some ways to take some walls out, put some suites in, really modernize it."
Gabbard appreciates that process (along with his plans to add the new padded seats) will shrink the building's capacity a bit, but he doesn't necessarily see that as a negative development.
"We're at 9,900 and a little bit, but if we went to 8,800, we'd be fine, and it's set up in such a way that everybody is so close to the floor that when it's full, it's a rocking place," Gabbard said. "I can tell you that when (Jim) Boeheim was in the Big East and we went to the ACC, and then Syracuse joined, he said 'Ugh, I've got to go back to Cassell.'"
Indeed, between those planned upgrades and the building's history, Gabbard doesn't anticipate the Hokies abandoning Cassell anytime soon, though he thinks there's plenty of other cosmetic changes that the department will consider in the next few years.
"I think we'll be playing with it for a while, because there's always a better way," Gabbard said. "The front, it's a 1965 front, and we need to make it a 20-whatever front...You'll see the floor change, a little bit of change over time and I think over the next few years, there'll be a new look or two that comes there."
It's no surprise that Babcock and Gabbard are working so hard to revamp the team's basketball accommodations after the department poured millions upon millions of dollars into the football program's facilities over the last decade or so — still, there are a few tweaks scheduled for Lane in the next months.
Lane Stadium West Side Indoor Clubs | Virginia Tech Facilities Master Plan
The most notable one involves the department laying out just $15,000 to revamp the west stand club areas closest to the south end zone, partially so the stadium can start selling beer and wine. Gabbard noted that the department just needs to buy two pieces of equipment to integrate beer kegs into the rest of the club area's offerings, and they'll have that ready in time for the new football season.
"I don't see us going further than that with respect to the beer," Gabbard said. "It's controlled that way, although West Virginia's been very successful, in fact they've cut down their arrests and increased their revenue, so instead of sneaking in beer, you buy it. But I think we'll stay just in the clubs right now, the demographic's a little better, there's more maturity and control."
Non-Revenue Renovations Aplenty
Yet even for all those changes coming for basketball and football fans, Gabbard stresses the department is also focused on improving facilities for some of its non-revenue sports as well.
With both golf programs depending on the Pete Dye River Course out in Radford for their practices, Gabbard saw an opportunity to transform a little-used part of the Merryman Center's basement into a new, easy to access hub for golf operations.
"The old wrestling room downstairs has been the storage room of all storage rooms," Gabbard said. "If you wanted to fully equip an office with half-broken furniture, you could probably find it all down there. We've taken all that out, and we have a new floor plan that includes four coaches offices, head coach and assistant coaches in both sports, two little locker rooms, a place to store your clubs, and a nice, big simulator and a nice, big putting area."
The whole project is set to cost around $650,000, and Gabbard is particularly excited about the video simulator area's potential to be a state-of-the-art resource for both teams.
"They come here in the winter and do their workout in the weight room, and instead of sending them on a snowy day to the river course, we can have them in the simulator," Gabbard said. "They're set up so you can play any course in the world, so you can work on your driving, hitting and the putting green will have a little chipping surface as well. So they can come here, work out, take a shower, putt and study, instead of driving to the river course with ice on the road."
Gabbard said the department is "close to pulling a permit" for the project, and once that happens, they could have the whole effort done by this summer.
"We'd like to get that done before August, it's just a 60 day job, the permitting is the hard part," Gabbard said.
As a former tennis player, Gabbard said he's also especially sensitive to the need for upgrades at the Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center up on Tech Center Drive. Though he thinks the whole facility could use some work, he's mapped out an initial set of renovations slated to start before the year is out.
"The worst locker rooms in America are at the tennis center," Gabbard said. "That's an overstatement, but it makes my point.
"The courts themselves are as good as any. What's lacking in that facility, more than anything else is support for the student-athlete, and that's what we're really trying to do in all our sports."
Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center Renovation | Virginia Tech Facilities Master Plan
Accordingly, Gabbard wants "phase one" of the renovations to include a "two-story facility" at the front of the center, which will contain "expanded locker rooms, added student lounges, added study areas, added team rooms, added coaches offices, added training room, and a nice entrance."
"The road's gonna dead end because of the airport, so the plan is to ultimately make that a destination so when you get there, it's worth looking at," Gabbard said.
Gabbard also wants to re-do the mezzanine area inside the center to provide an enclosed training and medical area for visiting teams as part of the initial upgrades, which he estimates will cost anywhere from "$2 million to $2.5 million."
"What we're battling with right now is one of the walls in there is fire rated, and it's the wall we want to make glass out of, so we're trying to get through that, but that's the old code issue, but we'll get through it," Gabbard said. "We've had an architect that's taken it this far, but until we solve the fire problem, which will happen in the next month, then we'll turn him loose and come up with some more creative stuff. He's got the floor plans right, we're just gonna move some things around."
Looking further down the road to what Gabbard dubs "phase two" of the center's future, he sees the potential for radical changes to the seating areas around the team's outdoor courts.
"You've got a hill there, I'd like to terrace that hill like we've done with baseball, make that a nice viewing area," Gabbard said. "But before I terrace it, I need to decide whether I want to leave the courts the way they are, or tear all six out and put in six in a row and build a stadium. We might do that, so that's where we're at."
But before those grand plans become a reality, the department will also give some love to its Rector Field House, making a handful of changes to the building that it's been planning for a while now (like a new softball hitting facility, a new throwing area for the track team and a redesigned entrance) to kick off construction on all these various projects.
"You'd have Rector, baseball and tennis probably happening real quick together, not exactly simultaneously, but within a year, you'll see all that beginning to happen," Gabbard said. "Rector, we're at the point where we'll break ground on that this summer...and then baseball, we'll break ground on that late summer, early fall. Then tennis will probably roll in there in the late fall, early winter, hopefully, that's the goal."
The sheer number of all these projects might seem overwhelming, but Gabbard doesn't bat an eye at the work. After all, the veteran facilities director has seen plenty of change over the last two decades at Tech, but it's all been in service of the same goal.
"We want the student-athlete experience to be as good as it possibly can," Gabbard said. "We take a lot of their time, we challenge them physically and mentally and it's not the easiest school to graduate from. But when you graduate, you've got a credential or degree that gets you in some doors, so our goal is to graduate students and make their experience as athletes as good as you can make it."
Comments
I anticipate this will be common during the fourth quarter now:
Great interview Alex. Aside from the padded seats in Cassell and some beer sales in the football stadium, it seems they are more interested in upgrading facilities to attract recruits, which is fine and needed. Now from a fans perspective, they need to do more than build new facilities. Here comes the soap box speech. I have talked Tom G. about upgrading the parking for RV's during football season. That airport runway expansion is going to take away approximately 150 RV parking spots and no one at VT seems to think it is a big deal. There are close to 500 RV's that come in during a football game including visitors and no where to park. When Ohio St. came in last year, it was embarrassing the lack of preparation that the parking facilities team had. If you want to be one of the big boys, you have to do it on all levels, not just ones you think are important. OK there is my rant.
you mean this isn't adequate accommodations for RVs?
What are you looking for? I know they just made Lot 17 an RV lot for the upcoming season.
I believe that is because they got rid of the dairy farm and the golf course for RV's. We park in the airport lot with about 100 other RV's and it hasn't been determined if that lot will be available in 2017 due to the runway extension project. We have 2 groups totaling about 60 RV's that are limbo for 2017. We are just trying to get ahead of the game for the future years. I am a little surprised they don't have a RV park, they seem to have everything else in the world.
#butts
Can he play, blocking back maybe?
This photo prompts the riddle that has been a thorn in my side for quite some time....
Why doesn't he try out to be a hockey goalie? No way a puck gets past this guy.
Question 1: How do you get all of that on two small blades though?
Question 2: How do you infuse steel into ice in order to make it strong enough not to crack under all that weight on 2 blades?
I do agree that attempting to balance that on two 1/8'' blades is a recipe for disaster for the well-being of said individual's ankles... The ice wouldn't crack, it's be plenty thick (1"+) to support and there's concrete below. So no, he's not falling into a pond here... And he only has to glide from the net to the bench and vice versa. Support from his 2 defensemen on either side should get the job done. When no action, he can just use the goal as support as needed.
Either way. It's solid material for a good chuckle! :D
He's big but he's not 24 sq. ft. big.
With the goalie's padding on he is 28 ft2.
Even the world's largest man would only block about 90% of the net, and with low mobility even a below average NHL player could readily score on him. You have to have size, speed, and agility in order to be a goalie. Obese people only fit one of those criteria.
Haha, OK. I will make sure to add the obligatory /S to all future tongue in cheek/joking comments to avoid serious and literal replies such as these. Man you guys are bored.
Convert the scooter to a snowmobile!
It seems like we are giving the Cassell a makeover every 6 or 7 years. Likewise, didn't we just give English Field a major upgrade? Our long-range and "sustainable" planning seems to be lacking.
And, regarding improvements for recruiting purposes, immediately after we built the basketball practice facility, both the men's and women's teams descended into the most historic losing streaks in school history. And, we have not yet recovered, although Buzz seems to have us headed in the right direction. Something to think about.
There may be a correlation between the two but there is not evidence of causation.
I sort of like that answer.
Welcome to the facilities upgrade arms race. Get used to it.
Also, regarding the tailspin men's basketball went into after the practice facility was built, that's because Weaver went out and hired an unqualified head coach to replace Greenberg, partially to save money after investing in facilities upgrades. That bean counter mindset nearly crippled our athletics program, and not just men's bball. Whit understands how to build and sustain a competitive athletics department in the 21st century.
Not really on English.
It is an absolute Embarrassment, better fit for a low tier Division 2 school or middling Texas high school than an ACC member. We recently upgraded some of the team practice facilities, and basically they have the back half of Rector. But in particular the lack of a video scoreboard, distance from locker room to field, lack of more modern Club Seating, and vending in general are major areas we are behind our peer schools that we have said we want to compete with.
The Naming Rights that were sold recently to Union Bank might be what you remember and that will be a major part of the funding the upgrades.
You mean professional baseball players don't drive from the locker room to the field too?
English field itself got an upgrade to a turf field but that wasn't that recent nor does it have anything to do with the stadium project. Cassell coliseum gets minor changes to fill the most immediate needs. Its not like they are doing the same work over and over. Recruiting also improved after the basketball practice facility was completed but the coaching changes were a significant downgrade. I'm not sure why you are so down on these facility changes.
wasn't terracing the hill a fairly recent addition?
It's at least 6 years old and it was a cheap stop gap for more seating.
Wow, that might be the biggest misuse of an out of context quote I've ever seen. Boeheim didn't prevent Cuse from coming to Cassell in the Big East because of how intimidating the place was and how 'rocking' it got. He refused to play there because he felt coming to a school with facilities as high-schoolish as VT had allowed our basketball facilities to get (practice court and lockerrooms were a complete embarrassment in the Big East days) was completely and utterly beneath a program with the prestige of Syracuse.
To see Gabbert puffing his chest out and trying to use that quote to pat himself and our program on the back is.... wow, completely out of touch with reality.
Remember Gabbert is from the Weaver era, and an expert at the spin move.
"Remember Gabbert is from the Weaver era, and an expert at the spin move."
"spin move"... Something was done here. Nicely done.
I think Gabbert is ADMITTING that the facilities were lacking. I see not "chest puffing."
Nah, not when you look at context. He's talking about how loud and rocking Cassell can be, even if they take out seats, and then he uses Boeheim's quote to back it up..... Which, just isn't right at all.
Gabbert is an Asshat...what I said hat that's not cussing
MY MAN! Hang this up in the recruitment office, your company isn't any good if you don't have Tech grads!
If it's not VTish, it's crap!
This reads to me as "There's somebody (or a few somebodies) important not quite sold yet on stadium-wide beer sales, but once we clear up that issue?"
Don't get your hopes up. That would entail a lot of cost outlay for VT.
WVU makes $500K profit/year in beer sales alone. How much would it cost to set up? I imagine Cans and Aluminum bottles would cost an extra refrigerator at each concession and a good amount more ice each game day. Seems like that cost would be easily surmounted by the profits.
It won't happen until Virginia Tech's peer institutions do it and West Virginia is not one of them. I think he mentioned it just to acknowledge that it can be successful.
Syracuse, Miami, Louisville, Maryland, UConn, Cincinnati, Texas - it's still rare to sell beer at a collegiate stadium, but there's still enough good company. And obviously, Whit has experience with this at Cincinnati.
Source
The only peer institutions on that list are Texas and Minnesota. Besides a number of those stadiums are off campus or pro stadiums. On campus university owned stadiums with beer is pretty rare and I don't expect Virginia Tech to be an early adopter.
Thanks for sharing the graphic. Very interesting.
What exactly do you mean by "peer institutions"?
I only ask because I would have thought Miami, at least, would make that cut. Even Syracuse, MD, WVU are institutions I would consider peers to Virginia Tech. And, with that said, I'm not sure I would consider Texas to be a peer to VT. I'll grant you Minnesota, though. I'm just curious what your criteria are.
I missed Maryland, so that makes 3. There is a list of peer institutions online.
Click Here
They are other universities that Virginia Tech looks at as comparable in some form or fashion.
That being said if it becomes widely accepted in the ACC then it will likely be adopted.
okay, thank you. I didn't know where you got that criteria. If I was just guessing which ones I thought would be peer institutions I'd be way off. I figured there had to be something for you to say that and be so specific about it.
also, partially amused that we are not considered a peer university with LOLUVA
We want beer at games, not Zima.
Miami plays in an NFL stadium as does Minnesota right now. Infrastructe and alcohol license already in place. Hard to use them when talking about on campus stadium wide alcohol sales.
...and now recruiting Hooker and Pimpelton makes all the sense in the world.
Actually the vikings were playing at the university stadium last year, which is open to the Minnesota climate.
The city will have two brand new football stadiums within 1.5 miles of each other. I have no idea why the university, NFL and city didn't get together and build one stadium. If Blacksburg had an NFL team Id want us to play in an NFL stadium (if we were looking to replace Lane and it was within a mile of campus) for recruiting and comfort purposes.
Same for an NBA team
Correct, making it an NFL stadium for the duration. Minnesota also doesn't allow people to buy drinks and take them back to their seats. It's a pretty limited area you can drink in.
Eh, I like having our own stadium. Miami plays at a pro stadium (granted, one far away from campus) and so does Pitt. Pitt, in particular, has problems because the stadium is used for high school games at times, too. The field is seemingly always torn up.
Just wondering, what do faculty salaries have to do with sales of alcohol at an athletic event?
I was wondering if anyone else would notice that.
Well, damn. Maybe if I'd known you could buy beer at UTEP games I would have gone to one while I was a student there... Nah, probably not!
(adding everything from courtside seats to an enormous ceiling fan)
They are called Big Ass Fans and you damn well know it.
that's why they're having to put in bigger seats, right?
I admit i do chuckle every time i see Big Ass Fan show up on a mechanical schedule or mechanical spec
Not to nit pick the article, but the ceiling fans pre-date Whit's tenure. They've been there since at least the 2012-13 season if not earlier.
Can we just make the Beamer Barn name official already? Also, what happened to Elmwood?
Dutch Elm Disease
There are only two things I hate
Enjoyed the article, thanks.
There's really no excuse why they aren't selling beer, if hes going to offer to a select few and then say "the demographics" now you sound high and mighty
Really? There is many reasons it's not general public sold: cost to school to get liquor license to sell general public alcohol, cost to fit in needed keg operating facilities, increase in security cost for extra law enforcement and security required by VA ABC. That's just cost in dollars it doesn't account for potential cost in terms of fan happiness and safety.
is it even possible for there to be more of an ABC law enforcement presence at Lane than there already is...?
kidding, sort of
The ABC board would require VT to get extra law enforcement officers to be hired for inside the stadium. More county officers, more state troopers.
Yes, and for this reason, I think alcohol should stay in the clubs. If they open sales to the general public and students, enforcement is going to increase, and if you're a student/underage, you had better walk the straight-and-narrow lest you want to wake up in Christiansburg.
Either sell it to everyone or no one I'm not buying the demographic and maturity argument
So your just going to ignore the cost issue altogether.
The revenues exceed the costs. His statement did not claim that it was not cost effective or profitable, he said the other fans can't handle it, basically.
Do you have a study that's says revenue will outweigh the cost? Not even Minnesota one of only three P5 teams to sell alcohol allows people to drink at their seats. They have drinking areas in the concourse. It's highly regulated, in fact the board there didn't want general alcohol sales but were forced to by the state legislator.
If every pro stadium you go to in every major sport sells alcohol, they aren't doing it to lose money. At $8-10/beer, the money adds up pretty quickly I don't think anyone would reasonably claim the costs will outweigh the revenues. As a matter of fact, you could probably get the vendors to pay the costs plus some. You don't think Miller or Bud wouldn't front the expenses to be the only beer being sold at Lane Stadium?
If that was the case why are more schools not selling beer? Considering just selling beer in small sections cost VT over 35,000 the outlay cost would be substantial. That's assuming you can get the VA ABC to allow it.
Edit: As for Pro stadiums, when was the last time a pro stadium was built with the owners money? Of course they sell beer and everything else he didn't have any upfront costs.
The supposed stigma or perception that the colleges are encouraging or contributing to college kids and alcohol use, is my guess. Definitely not financial. Most of the people that attend now, are not students anyway due to the cost of attendance. In the past that was not the case.
And I'm not just including football, also hockey, basketball, baseball, all sell beer, with much fewer attendees and are profitable
It is a more controlled environment. The people that sit in that area are typically old enough to drink and more reserved. There is very little risk of underaged drinking or drunk in public issues.
It would be completely and utterly bullshit for the ABC to prevent alcohol sales at collegiate venues, Not when they allow it in any stadium that isn't attached to a college campus. Sorry, the ABC is a backwards-assed institution anyways that only makes policy to pad their own wallets, so I don't really have any respect for most of what they do.
People are drunk at games anyway. People gets far too liquored up in the lots prior to the game, and sneak in too much alcohol to the stadium just to carry the buzz through the game. Allow sale of alcohol in the stadium, and studies have shown the amount of overdrinking actually decreases over time. You want to make the stadium safer in regards to alcohol, the way to do it is to legalize the sale of it in the stadium so that you can effectively regulate it.
Studies haven't shown that yet because there has not been enough places selling it for long enough. Four P5 schools sell alcohol inside the stadium and none of them for more than 6 years and none of them sell in same ways. a WVU and Texas contribute lower police calls to removing the ability for fans to leave the game and come back, something VT already doesn't allow.
I disagree. That was neither the tone he was going for nor the tone I got from reading it.
For $6-800 per seat plus the cost of the ticket, you'd think you'd be able to buy a beer. And I don't think the demographics or maturity will be any different than the club seats sounds asinine
You clearly haven't sat in those seats before.
I'm saying once the reseating occurs, that the fans who buy the club seats won't be more "mature" than the guy who pays $6/800 per seat (plus the cost of the tickets). At what level cost of seating is the invisible maturity distinction which appears solely economic based?
It has nothing to do with cost it has everything to do with the atmosphere and the type of people that choose to sit in those seats.
While we're on the topic of beer sales in Lane... Didn't VT just start brewing their own beer?
Seems like we're setting ourselves up for a potential new revenue stream down the line.
Is this what you were talking about cause it sure does seem like they are headed that way.
https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2016/02/021816-cals-brewhouse.html
They may be able to make a small amount of money off of this, but it's a 66 gallon system. I really doubt that is a large enough system to sell at, for instance, Lane Stadium. 66 gallons is approximately 630 beers (assuming 48 beers per 5 gallons).
... For now...