Fans at Memorial Stadium purchased more than $4.3 million of beer and seltzer, beating expectations

While Nebraska’s football team struggled at times this year, finishing at 7-5, fans guzzled beer and seltzer at a championship level.

Nebraska Athletics generated more than $4.3 million in alcohol sales this season at Memorial Stadium, according to a report provided by the University of Nebraska.

That figure came in higher than projections during the first year of alcohol sales at the stadium.

After the Board of Regents approved alcohol sales at all university athletic venues last fall, Director of Athletics Troy Dannen said “we will conservatively estimate $3-4 million” in alcohol sales throughout the course of the season.

Earlier this year, a report ranked alcohol sales at Memorial Stadium through September tops in the country among the 21 college football programs that responded to open record requests.

All concessions, including alcohol, generated more than $10 million in revenue for the athletic department. That’s a 75% increase from last year’s total of nearly $5.8 million.

Food, water and soda sales remained flat compared to last year, at more than $5.7 million. An athletic department spokesperson said that could be due to more people opting for beer this year rather than soda. Nebraska football played seven home games in each of the last two seasons.

There were many unknowns heading into the season at Memorial Stadium, according to Seth Dorsey, Chief Financial Officer for the athletic department.

“But overall, it went as expected," he said. "Items purchased were up. There was a substantial amount of alcohol purchased through various mediums, whether it be premium or concession, across a variety of products.”

At both Devaney and Memorial Stadium, there’s room for improvement including adding more points of sale, Dorsey said. That includes potentially adding a mixture of runners in the stands, kiosks and full-blown concession stands.

“It's more complicated than it comes across, but that's no excuse,” Dorsey said, “and we need to figure out how to get more points of sale out there to hopefully have a better experience, whether people want the hot dog or they want the nacho.”

With the introduction of alcohol at Memorial Stadium, the number of items sold per fan increased. For food, concession stands sold out of Runzas and Valentino’s Pizza at times.

As for alcohol related incidents and arrests, Dorsey said it seems binge drinking went down at Memorial Stadium.

“We've been tracking data with police, and across the board, there have been positive results,” Dorsey said.

DUI arrests and alcohol-related calls were down from last season, however in the middle of the season, there was a slight uptick in the average number of alcohol violations in the stadium from more than one to four.

The Huskers were the final school in the Big Ten to approve alcohol sales for football games.

Volleyball fans, meanwhile, purchased about $182,000 worth of beer and seltzer this season during the first year of alcohol sales at the Bob Devaney Sports Center. Food, water and soda sales grew from almost $1.1 million in 2024 to nearly $1.3 million this fall.

In total, the Bob Devaney Sports Center sold more than $1.4 million in concessions, including alcohol.

The number of items sold increased at Devaney this season. But fans had more choices at higher price points than before, he said, driving up the total sales number.

“There wasn't much variety there before. It was the traditional items that you saw between Runzas and hot dogs and Val’s, which those are still available at all those stands. But there were also additions of Chick-Fil-A, for example,” Dorsey said. “So, we expected there would be an increase in revenue, but the primary driver was an increased product mix, and some of the increased product mix being of a higher dollar value item.”

The 30-0 Huskers finished the regular season undefeated, for the third time in school history, joining the 1994 and 2000 teams. They host Long Island University Friday night in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Husker football will hear about its official bowl game placement on Sunday.