College Football’s Beer Boom Is About More Than Thirsty Fans

The 2026 college football season is upon us. It should be an interesting year, as Indiana University sets out to defend its national championship, won on the heels of a dominant 16-0 season last year. It's also going to be a time when copious amounts of beer will flow in collegiate stadiums across the country.

Beer in college stadiums was a rarity until a few years ago, something that's stood in sharp contrast to the tradition of cracking open a few brews in pregame tailgating. But in a short period of time, in-stadium drinking has practically become the standard.

In 2023, USA Today reported 117 out of the NCAA's 133 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams (read: the big-time programs you see on TV every weekend) sold beer in their stadiums on gameday. Only five — Baylor, BYU, Liberty, Utah, and Utah State — don't sell beer. One longtime holdout, Iowa State University, will finally allow beer sales at football games this year.

This rapid proliferation may have been hard to fathom a decade ago. But how did we get here?

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How in-stadium beer drinking evolved

The first college to sell beer on gameday was the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), in 1971. A few colleges followed, but the notion certainly didn't catch fire. In 2014, only 21 college football programs sold beer on game day. The number crept up to nearly 40 in 2016. Then, the Southeastern Conference (SEC) got involved.

In 2019, the SEC permitted its schools to sell beer and wine during games. The rationale, according to the SEC, was to "enhance the gameday experience." Other major NCAA conferences followed suit, and the number of college stadiums that sold gameday brews nearly doubled.

Beer sales in college stadiums is commonplace today, but with several restrictions. Customers typically can't buy more than two beers at once. Most colleges also cut off sales at the end of the third quarter, some even sooner. Additionally, drinking in student sections is usually prohibited.

A popular — and possibly necessary — option

It's not realistic to gather and interpret comprehensive information on drink revenue or volume across NCAA Division I schools. But there's enough data out there to at least provide a rough sketch.

The returns indicate that the idea is a solid money maker. The University of Georgia allowed in-game alcohol sales to the general public for the 2024 season, while the University of Nebraska did the same last season, the last school in the Big Ten conference to allow sales. Both schools generated more than $4.3 million in public alcohol sales in 2025.

In Nebraska's case, it can be argued that selling beer during games enhanced the gameday experience for fans. After all, the Cornhuskers finished the season 7-5 and were nowhere near the College Football Playoff conversation.

Regardless, the sales helped enhance school revenue. As the college football season begins anew, this is more crucial than ever if a program wants to be relevant.

In 2025, a federal judge approved the antitrust settlement House vs. NCAA, which allows schools to share revenue with their athletes, using funds from the schools' athletic departments to directly pay student-athletes. While some of those funds are earmarked for other sports, an article by The Athletic said that the majority of schools in the so-called Power 4 conferences — the SEC, ACC, Big Ten, and Big 12 — would allocate around 75% of their funds to football.

Programs need to make money somehow. Beer sales provide these programs an easy additional revenue stream. It may not be a significant amount in comparison to their share of rights fees from mammoth conference TV contracts, but it's revenue nonetheless. It also seems somewhat less unscrupulous compared to other tactics. Several schools increased student fees to increase revenue in the wake of the ruling.

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A win for the fans

Whether revenue sharing in college football is sustainable is up for debate, particularly since plenty of colleges use it to complement money generated through players' name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals, which is its own separate can of worms.

Yet, even if reforms take place down the road, it's hard to envision college football stadiums going dry again, unless an incident on par with old-school English football hooliganism breaks out after a scintillating win or a devastating loss.

The biggest winner in this paradigm shift is the fans, a healthy chunk of whom are either alumni or fans of legal drinking age. To enjoy a beer or two amid the gridiron action extends the good-time vibes of the pregame tailgate, but in a controlled manner that encourages responsibility. It seems to affirm the goal of enhancing the gameday experience. That's worthy of a touchdown celebration.

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