CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – Coastal Carolina University is trying out a pilot program to sell beer at some athletic events.
“It’s something that our fans have told us that they wanted,” said CCU Athletic Director, Matt Hogue. “It’s a trend that’s certainly growing across college athletics.”
Right now, beer is only sold on Saturdays and Sundays at CCU baseball games.
“We’ve seen it start to grow at well over 100 schools across the country,” said Hogue. “There’s also several schools across our state particularly with baseball that have begun to add this to their amenities for their fans.”
Hogue also said he felt like the time was right to start selling beer.
“As long as we could come up with a plan that fit and to kind of start out as an assessment year, more than anything else, and that’s what lead us down the path to take a look at it,” he added.
People at the venue can only have three beers per game and sales stop after the sixth inning.
“There’s a lot of restraint in place to make sure no one abuses the product, obviously, and that we can control the sale of it from beginning to end,” added Hogue.
He also said fans have had a good response to the program.
“I think it’s a good idea,” said CCU fan, Jim Quigley. “It seems to be working. It’s a great idea. Make money for the college. So they might as well keep doing it.”
News13 asked Hogue if there were plans to spread the program to other CCU sports.
“Whether or not we go to other sports is going to depend on a lot of other factors,” said Hogue. “When you take a look at a football environment, for example, that already has a pretty significant tailgating environment. That might not correspond with sales inside the stadium, so those are the kinds of things we have to look at.”
Hogue said leaders across campus will talk about how the program went this year and make decisions for the possible expansion of the program.