Zeise: Beer sales for Pitt games at Heinz Field all about money

Pitt is now just the 40th Division I college football program to sell beer to the general public (out of about 120), and like the others before it, the administration announced it by telling us all of the "studies" and how "thoughtful" the process to come to this conclusion.

I read in the Tallahassee Democrat on Tuesday a very similar tale about beer sales at Florida State baseball games and what a success it was.

But just when athletic director Stan Wilcox got to the point _ that it generated a lot of money ($104,463) in net sales which translated to $40,227 for the Seminoles Boosters Inc. _ he went all college administrator on us and said that he is not sure Florida State is "ready" for beer sales at football games.

So let's review. The school is "ready" for alcohol sales at baseball and men's and women's basketball games, and the school knows it is a financial windfall (which is the point of it all, anyway) but doing it for football games is where the line is drawn.

That's similar to Pitt athletic director Scott Barnes, who, instead of just saying "we studied how much money beer sales would bring in and we like it so we will do it at football and basketball games," went into a long-winded discussion about all of the vetting they had to do to reach this conclusion.

And then he said they must "study" (the most meaningless buzzword of all buzzwords) this before they decide to expand it to men's basketball games.

Apparently at Florida State, basketball fans are mature enough to handle buying beer in the arena, but football fans are not.

I appreciate athletic director's speak, and I am glad they are dedicating a portion of their sales to "drug and alcohol education." I really like Barnes, but why is it so hard for these administrators to admit that it is just another money grab?

You see a lot of people outside the stadium drinking beer at their tailgates and you want to cash in. There is nothing at all wrong with that.

I have had people this week tell me that this was an terrible step for Pitt to take and that the Pitt fan experience should not mirror the Steelers fan experience and well, to quote Sgt. Hulka, "Lighten up, Francis."

If anything, having regulated alcohol sales inside the stadium might stem the tide of some of the drinking that goes on. Just because there are beer sales doesn't mean all of the sudden there is going to be some rash of drunks and rowdy behavior inside the stadium.

People drink outside the stadium at tailgates, and there are no regulations about how many they can drink, who can drink or what they can drink.

Inside, there are rules, and the cost of the beers _ like $9 or $10 each _ makes them cost prohibitive and not ideal for people looking to get extremely drunk.

If people are looking to do that for $10 a beer, they will buy a few fifths of really cheap wine or a case of the bottom of the barrel beer and pound them before they go into the stadium.

Beer sales at college events are fine. If anything, I'm more surprised there 80 programs that don't sell beer at football games than I am that there are 40 that do.

My only wish is that the administrators stop insulting our intelligence every time one of these plans is rolled out or discussed with all this discussion about all of the thought that went into and all of the discussions that had to take place before a decision was made to allow beer sales at games.

I did laugh when Barnes talked about all the research associate athletic director Marcus Bowman did in terms of talking to other schools that allow beer sales in order to come to this conclusion.

Here is what I imagine the "research" and discussions were like:

"Hey ... we are studying beer sales at Heinz Field for football games, what can you tell me about your plan..."

"Nobody has gotten killed, injured or stomped, and it has generated about $500,000 for our athletic department."

"Sold!"

I'm just having some fun, but the reality is this is such a non-issue that has only been made an issue because people are making it one.

I applaud Pitt for coming to this conclusion because the reality of college athletics is that schools need to find ways to generate money, and this is a good way and also because fans like to have a pop or two while they are sitting in the stadium watching a game.

That's why I also laughed when I read the quote from Barnes, in his best college administrator hat, saying they would need to "study" the effects of this policy every Monday after home games before proceeding to decide whether to sell beer at basketball games as well.

Once again, I imagine a big cigar-smoke-filled room the Monday after the Villanova season opener, the discussion being something like this:

"So what did we find out?"

"I had one old lady email me to say a drunk spilled a beer on her granddaughter. But then she admitted it was her husband."

"I got no complaints from my people, except that the beer lines were too long"

"We made about $85,000"

Well then, that decides it, we are doing it for hoops too! Meeting adjourned."

Alcoholism is not a laughing matter, and there are issues in any walk of life when alcohol is involved.

But beer has been sold at games for almost as long as there have been games, so this isn't a big deal.