Peer Pressure

After my wife and I finished watching the stream of our nieces team completing a 1 to 0 victory over their opponent in a softball game last night I was flipping through the channels. I ended up landing on a softball game between Clemson and some other team. I wasn't really paying attention to the game because I was busy talking to a few people from HIVE in DM's on Discord, but then I heard something that caught my attention.

They said something about Clemson for the first time ever selling alcohol at their home sporting events. That idea didn't really shock me, because I know university sports teams have been doing that for a couple of decades now. In fact, I remember Maybe 25 years ago when the Bears were looking at having a new stadium built or renovations done to the current one (I don't quite remember).

I happened to be doing some work down in the middle of Illinois and the local folks were talking about how the Bears games were going to be played at the University of Illinois, but the school didn't have the pieces in place to sell beer at the games.

These days, it's quite common, but as I said, just a couple of decades ago, it wasn't a thing for alcohol to be sold at college sporting events. Lately there have been a few hold outs, namely BYU and a handful of other schools Clemson being one of them.

Starting just a couple of days ago, Clemson started selling alcohol at their home baseball games. I think what struck me the most about the change is the reason the commentators gave during the softball broadcast. Obviously, they were commentators, so it's just speculation, but they implied the sudden change of position had to do with needing more money for NIL deals and selling alcohol would be a big boost to their bottom line for that.

Clearly, this has many people up in arms. Many people really liked the idea that Clemson games were family friendly events where you didn't have to worry about the drunk guy in the row behind you spilling his beer all over you. Don't ask me how I know about things like that....

Actually, I remember a Detroit Tigers game a long time ago where I accidentally spilled a beer all over my wife. Instead of walking around the rest of the day like she had pissed herself we had to buy these bright pink sweat pants for her to wear. I'm honest not sure the beer soaked jeans would have looked worse!

In any event, it's pretty clear this change has fans on both sides divided. As I said, I think what concerns me the most is the main reason they chose to do it comes down to money. Of course everything always comes down to money, but in a world where NIL deals have become the norm, what kind of message does it send to kids about commitment and values when a school can so quickly chase the money as well.

You have no one to complain to Clemson when you lose that star recruit to another school because they offered more money...

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