It is long overdue for Camp Randall Stadium to make alcohol available to purchase for all ticketed fans over the age of 21.
This is a hotly debated topic not only here at UW-Madison but also many collegiate stadiums that don’t currently allow the sale of alcohol. The main reason that alcohol is still unavailable at Camp Randall, besides in the new club sections, is a concern over how much students in the student section would drink.
I personally think this reasoning is lazy and by serving alcohol at the stadium there are actually a few ways it would put students at less risk.
Madison is known for its great tailgate scene before football games and allowing alcohol sales inside Camp Randall Stadium would do nothing to take away from it. However, I think it would encourage some students to drink less at tailgates or at least lower the frequency of students consuming excessive amounts of alcoholic beverages just before going to the game if they knew they could continue to drink when inside the stadium.
As many people have noted over the years UW-Madison students are notoriously late arrivals to football games,with the student section usually not reaching capacity until at least the second quarter. There have been discussions on how to encourage more students to arrive at the games on time and alcohol sales in the stadium could play a large role in this.
It is also well known that students typically sneak alcoholic beverages into games and it is not at all difficult to do so. This could be discouraged with alcohol available at the games along with heightened security. Other football stadiums in the Big Ten Conference offer alcohol at their games including Iowa, Minnesota, and Ohio State and they seem to have figured out a smooth process that keeps students and other fans alike safe.
Opponents of this idea will say that this policy would likely lead to mass amounts of underage drinking at the games. However, as I mentioned above this act is already common among students with many of them illegally bringing alcohol to games.
Also, fans who order a drink would have to show ID confirming they are 21 and wristbands can be given out to those who order a drink and security and the police can make sure if they see someone with a drink in their hand that they have the wristband proving their ID was checked. Obviously increased training would have to be given to concession workers such as a class on how to identify a fake ID and when to cut someone off from purchasing a drink when they seem to have had too much.
I have mostly given this argument from a student perspective because that is my only experience in Camp Randall Stadium. However, selling alcohol at the games is sure to bring in lots of revenue for the school with how big of a drinking culture there is surrounding football and the state of Wisconsin. Many professional teams and schools across the country and even teams in our conference have figured out ways to sell alcohol safely.
And it is time for the University of Wisconsin to figure it out, too.