TCF Stadium Revenue

[Schnoodler]

And then name all the first cousins of the assistant AD's in each school beginning with an 'N', starting in reverse alphabetical order.

 

[oak_street1981]

For once I agree completely with UpNorth04

The U was being stubborn.

They easily could have put an obscure "common man" beer garden somewhere in one of the many unused areas within the bowels of the stadium to comply. A bigger and better verison of the Rally/ Maroon Room at the Metrodome comes to mind.

They could have sold expensive drinks via servers in a few of the high buck seating areas besides the loge/suite areas with wireless device/credit card transactions, just like the Twins do in the Delta Club level suites. None of this would have made the U an "outlier" in the Big Ten.

This would have addressed the demands of the legislature, without liquor being sold everywhere (like at the Metrodome with almost zero issues for almost 30 years) and then been able to reap the benefits in the suites and return to business as usual at Williams and Mariucci.

I can understand drawing a line in the sand to deal with the meddling of the legislature in the affairs of the University, but this did not have to be such a big problem.

 

[WAGopher]

The U was being stubborn.

They easily could have put an obscure "common man" beer garden somewhere in one of the many unused areas within the bowels of the stadium to comply. A bigger and better verison of the Rally/ Maroon Room at the Metrodome comes to mind.

They could have sold expensive drinks via servers in a few of the high buck seating areas besides the loge/suite areas with wireless device/credit card transactions, just like the Twins do in the Delta Club level suites. None of this would have made the U an "outlier" in the Big Ten.

This would have addressed the demands of the legislature, without liquor being sold everywhere (like at the Metrodome with almost zero issues for almost 30 years) and then been able to reap the benefits in the suites and return to business as usual at Williams and Mariucci.

I can understand drawing a line in the sand to deal with the meddling of the legislature in the affairs of the University, but this did not have to be such a big problem.

This would have made sense if the legislature had negotiated this upfront before the stadium was built or financed. However, this isn't the case. The University built the stadium with a plan that considered revenues and expenses and part of the plan is to sell alcohol only in certain areas of the stadium. It's important to know that the legislature approved this plan and voted it into law. By changing the law after the stadium was built has encumbered the University's plan.

The time for the legislature to have acted was during the early phases of the planning, not a knee-jerk reaction framed as a populist movement. As much as some might like selling beer to everyone, a beer garden wasn't planned, taps weren't purchased, a delivery system isn't at each food stand, and whatever else needed isn't in place. Maybe if the legislature wants a beer garden, they can gift the University a few million dollars to build it. That certainly would have been a more thoughtful law than the one they passed.