Tuscaloosa City Council approves alcohol sales at Coleman Coliseum

The Tuscaloosa City Council approved the sale of alcohol at Alabama basketball’s Coleman Coliseum by a vote of 6-1 on Tuesday night, according to The Crimson White. The venue must now acquire an Alabama liquor license before selling beer, wine and hard seltzers at all home games inside the building.

The potential for the move was made possible in 2019, when the SEC lifted its ban on alcohol sales in public seating areas at on-campus venues. The school has not yet reached an agreement with the city to sell alcohol at Bryant-Denny Stadium at this time.

However, despite the lack of alcohol sales at football games, all beverages will be available for men’s basketball, women’s basketball and gymnastic events held inside Coleman Coliseum.

“It’s something a lot of our fans have been asking for,” Athletic Director Greg Byrne said, via the Crimson White. “We’ve been able to watch the other schools, and the reporting we have gotten back from other schools is that alcohol incidents at their games actually go down once they sell because it’s a much more controlled environment.”

The school also permits students, age 21 or older, to bring a limited number of select alcoholic beverages into the student seating area at Sewell-Thomas Stadium, where the baseball team plays its home games.

Alabama posts profit

The final numbers for Alabama’s previous fiscal year are in and they showed a shocking result for the COVID-19 impacted year. UA athletics made $179.8 million in revenue while spending only $170.2 million in expenses. This gave Alabama’s athletics department a $9.6 million dollar profit, far exceeding their projected $75 million deficit.

Revenue did fall by nearly $9.5 million from the previous year overall. Alabama’s fiscal year numbers cover July 2020 through June 2021 during the peak of reduced-capacity games. Bryant-Denny Stadium used only 20% of its seating for the 2020 season, resulting in an 81% drop in athletics ticket revenue during the period.

Alabama’s ability to remain in the black on their ledgers is a direct result of the SEC financial aid that the conference provided during the 2020 season. The SEC distributed $23 million to each institution to assist with pandemic-related shorts to their programs. The financial aid came after the league estimated an average loss of $45 million for each school during the pandemic.

Despite exceeding the original estimations of major losses, Alabama would not have finished the fiscal year with a profit without the SEC financial aid.

The report detailing Alabama’s financial reports also detailed how wide-spread the impact of COVID-19 has been on schools. South Carolina and Tennessee also finished with a profit for the year, with a $4.8 million and $757,598 profit respectively.