New beer, wine deal on tap for University of Minnesota for TCF Bank Stadium

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per the STrib:

The University of Minnesota is hurriedly moving to renegotiate its contract with its longtime concessionaire to funnel more alcohol proceeds to the school after reporting that it lost money in its first year selling beer and wine at TCF Bank Stadium.

University officials said the new tentative agreement — which comes as the school faces continuing criticism for losing money on alcohol sales during the 2012 football season — would substantially increase its percentage of beer and wine sale proceeds from the stadium’s general seating area. Only two months ago, the school reported it lost nearly $16,000 in its first year of selling beer and wine at the four-year-old stadium, even though it sold more than $900,000 worth of alcohol.

The school and Aramark, one of the country’s largest concessionaires, have since been renegotiating the contract at the urging of university President Eric Kaler and athletic department officials, and a new agreement would raise the university’s percentage from 22.5 percent of net sales to 35 percent of net sales up to $475,000 and 40 percent of sales above $475,000 in the stadium’s general seating area. Using the new percentages, school officials said the university would make $110,000 this coming football season based on last year’s sales.

“I think it was a surprise that we lost money,” said David Benedict, the school’s executive associate athletic director. “We were not happy when we realized the fact that we had not shown a net profit.”

http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/207478751.html

Go Gophers!!
 

When I saw the article I was hoping they were making a new beer and wine deal for *Better* beer and wine. Local is better.:drink:
 

Board of Regents member Clyde Allen, however, defended the arrangement, and said prohibiting underage alcohol sales — and not making money — was the school’s top priority at the football stadium. “Making money on it is not really the main purpose of it,” Allen said. “We’re more interested in being sure that we can control the sale of it.”
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Wonder no further why the baseball stadium has no lights and it takes 15 years to build a new practice facility for football/basketball.

From the article, the Vikings and the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority made 2.5 Million on alcohol sales in the 10 games in the dome. It's a bigger stadium so it would have been about 2 million at TCF. This is still 200,000/game. Yet even with the new renegotiated contract we can only hope to get $110K for 7 games. It's not half, it's not a quarter, it's 20X less!
 

AO54 said:
Wonder no further why the baseball stadium has no lights and it takes 15 years to build a new practice facility for football/basketball.

From the article, the Vikings and the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority made 2.5 Million on alcohol sales in the 10 games in the dome. It's a bigger stadium so it would have been about 2 million at TCF. This is still 200,000/game. Yet even with the new renegotiated contract we can only hope to get $110K for 7 games. It's not half, it's not a quarter, it's 20X less!
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To be fair, Vikings fans drink like its the end of the world
 



Per the U of MN press release:

Gopher Athletics and ARAMARK Amend Contract Increasing University Revenue

The University of Minnesota athletic department and its food and beverage services provider, ARAMARK, have agreed to amend the contract for alcohol sales revenue distribution at TCF Bank Stadium. ARAMARK has agreed to pay the university an additional $37,000 for the 2012 season, resulting in a net profit of $21,000. Combined alcohol sales at TCF Bank Stadium, Mariucci Arena and Williams Arena for the 2012-13 academic year resulted in a $42,000 profit.

The original ARAMARK contract included a commission structure for alcohol sales in premium seating areas only. It did not include a separate revenue sharing structure for general seating areas. After reviewing the initial season’s sales, both parties agreed to amend the contract to ensure Gopher Athletics earned a more reasonable share of the sales revenues.

“This agreement enhances the partnership between Gopher Athletics and ARAMARK,” said Minnesota Director of Athletics Norwood Teague. “This contract benefits both organizations and ensures the university gets a more appropriate share of revenues from the expansion of alcohol sales to the entire stadium.”

The original, 2012 agreement included a 22.5 percent commission on alcohol sales in premium and general seating areas. The amended agreement will retain the 22.5 percent commission for premium seating and increases the general seating sales commission to 35 percent on the first $475,000 in alcohol sales revenues and 40 percent on all sales revenue above that amount.

If total alcohol sales at TCF Bank Stadium are similar in 2013 to those in 2012, the university will realize a net profit of $110,000. This includes new revenue from the amended commission structure, as well as the elimination of one-time startup expenses incurred in 2012. The ARAMARK contract will be revisited in the spring of 2014, as the university evaluates the two-year pilot of alcohol sales.

-UM-
 

If you're having a bad day, just go read the comment section of the STrib. You'll realize that you are not part of that tainted segment of the gene pool and be happy.
 

GopherInPittsburgh said:
If you're having a bad day, just go read the comment section of the STrib. You'll realize that you are not part of that tainted segment of the gene pool and be happy.
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The best way to kill brain cells is to do just that. You will kill brain cells from excessive concussions caused by extremely heavy duty head shakes.
 

AO54 said:
Wonder no further why the baseball stadium has no lights and it takes 15 years to build a new practice facility for football/basketball.

From the article, the Vikings and the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority made 2.5 Million on alcohol sales in the 10 games in the dome. It's a bigger stadium so it would have been about 2 million at TCF. This is still 200,000/game. Yet even with the new renegotiated contract we can only hope to get $110K for 7 games. It's not half, it's not a quarter, it's 20X less!
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The U sold less than $1 Million worth of beer IN A SEASON. I don't anticipate that changing significantly. If the MSFA makes $2.5 Million / 10 games profit, they are likely selling at least $500k worth IN A GAME (probably more). So comparing the absolute amount of money made off beer is silly - there isn't a comparison because the U is never going to be in that volume range. Even percentages are likely misleading because I believe the Vikes get a deal on Lite since they are the Official Beer of the Vikings.
 



Lakeville Goldy said:
The U sold less than $1 Million worth of beer IN A SEASON. I don't anticipate that changing significantly.
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With Wisconsin, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Wisconsin fans visiting this year plus it being year two of booze in the stadium, there should be an increase in sales.
 

Maximus said:
With Wisconsin, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Wisconsin fans visiting this year plus it being year two of booze in the stadium, there should be an increase in sales.
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Personally, I'd love to see them sell beer at more areas in the stadium. We always tried to support the U, so would at least get one beer, but it would take 20 minutes, and halftime lines were crazy. If you could just pop out of your seat in a timeout, and grab one...a lot more would be sold.
 

Very true Nadine on access. Also a few less 11 am start times will help sales also (I'm just not very thirsty at 10:30 :)

Here's to hoping they add Summit Saga or Summit Pilsner to the mix this fall.

Does Aramark control the food as well? I wish the concessions were a little cooler like Target Field. The Twins do it right with concessions.
 

nokomismod said:
Very true Nadine on access. Also a few less 11 am start times will help sales also (I'm just not very thirsty at 10:30 :)

Here's to hoping they add Summit Saga or Summit Pilsner to the mix this fall.

Does Aramark control the food as well? I wish the concessions were a little cooler like Target Field. The Twins do it right with concessions.
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I'm usually dehydrated by 10:30 from cracking a tailgating beer at 7. But I still managed to buy a couple this year to support the U.
 



Tim Riggins said:
I'm usually dehydrated by 10:30 from cracking a tailgating beer at 7. But I still managed to buy a couple this year to support the U.
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Tim Riggins...Rookie. To do it right, ya gotta start the night before and drink yourself sober by game time. Try it that way. :)
 

nokomismod said:
Does Aramark control the food as well? I wish the concessions were a little cooler like Target Field. The Twins do it right with concessions.
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Aramark does all concessions at TCF Bank Stadium. Delaware North Cos.' Sportservice does the concession at Target Field.

They're basically the two big players in the sports concessions business.
 

Wine...meh....Just let me know where I can get a Flat Tire and a Belgian White Shock Top.
 

Parski1 said:
Wine...meh....Just let me know where I can get a Flat Tire and a Belgian White Shock Top.
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It's not every day I see eye to eye with Parski but he knows quality suds assuming he meant the Fat one ;-).

Go Gophers
 



Comparing Gopher to Viking beer sales is not fair. 1st, at the Gopher games beer sales end before the 3rd quarter, not after. 2nd, like others have pointed out, earlier start times. Lastly, much of the audience to too young to drink.....or too old.
 


This is only a good thing.. Especially with the hogs and skunks coming into town next season. I would expect the profit to exceed double last seasons with those two games alone.

That said, to get good food, hit up the open end of the stadium (inside the gates).. There are a few vendors there that sell GREAT food.. Including a bacon-wrapped hotdog (and it's no Oscar Meyer weiner, either!). I usually grab something from those vendors and then pick up a half-sub from one of the Subway kiosks and hit my seat. I never have to move from my seat to get anything else (I'm a master at holding my bladder).
 


NateDawgUM said:
Aramark does all concessions at TCF Bank Stadium. Delaware North Cos.' Sportservice does the concession at Target Field.

They're basically the two big players in the sports concessions business.
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Thanks NateDawg. Stoopid question, but do the Twins have really good concessions because the Team is telling the catering company how it needs to be done, or does Delaware North just do a better job?
 

BleedGopher said:
STrib column: Beer, football, students: How can you lose?

http://www.startribune.com/local/208021701.html

Go Gophers!!
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Another Strib writer who really doesn't understand the situation. If you read the column, he seems to be criticizing the U for not selling beer to the student section - even though a significant % of those students are not old enough to legally purchase alcohol. So, according to this guy, the secret to more profitable beer sales is to break the law by selling beer to underage students. Yeah - that'll work.
 

If the U offers a degree in how to negotiate contracts, I hope they drop it.
 

station19 said:
If the U offers a degree in how to negotiate contracts, I hope they drop it.
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No kidding. The "new" contract is just as despicable. Why isn't the American legion handling beer sales? Any of the fine old ladies that poor beer on Friday nights at most posts could have set the whole thing up and some of the profits would go to vets and more profit for the U.
 

If they sold individual drinking licenses - I can bring in 4 beers of my own - how much would they have to sell them for to make $110,000?
 


MN Daily Q&A with Kaler:

The University recently renegotiated its deal with Aramark to sell alcohol at TCF Bank Stadium. What do you expect in terms of sales next season?

We anticipate next year being much like this year, except, of course, this year we took all of the startup costs against income, which created the illusion that we couldn’t make money selling beer — which was a crazy situation. So we won’t have those expenses next year, and we have a much better contract, so we anticipate turning a modest profit.

http://www.mndaily.com/university/a...ota-leg-tcf-bank-stadium-alcohol-sales-and-ge

Go Gophers!!
 

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