Alcohol Sales at Kinnick Leading to LESS Gameday Drinking?

As Iowa football fans, we were perhaps drinking away our sorrows in the first part of the season. It looked pretty grim, to say the least. Suddenly, three weeks of winning may have transformed gameday alcohol consumption into a more celebratory activity. Neither of those things may play into this report.

But leave it to the state who, in two separate recent studies was called not only one of the leading binge-drinking states but also one full of light drinkers, to come out with this confusing and slightly mixed result.

The director of the University of Iowa Public Safety Department says that since  2021 when alcohol sales were introduced inside Kinnick Stadium on game days, there has been LESS drinking. Well...sort of.

Mark Bullock of the Iowa Board of Regents presented the findings that were published in a recent story by Radio Iowa. The #1 most surprising result in his mind is a 40 percent decrease in hospital admissions on game day since the introduction of alcohol sales in the stadium. The connection there seems to have involved accidents, rowdiness, and injuries related to alcohol.

Another interesting discovery is that fewer people are coming into the stadium drunk or trying to bring drinks in, as in pre-game inebriating or what some people call "tailgating". It seems now that folks can get it inside the confines of Kinnick, they're more in control of their pregame consumption.

Thirdly, while alcohol-related issues are still the leading cause of arrests, the number of them has decreased significantly. Color us confused! Is it one of those deals where now that you can, you don't want to? Or are "Iowans just being Iowans", and doing the right thing, as always?

As the expression goes, "Drink responsibly". Well, good on you, Hawkeye fans, for apparently doing just that.

(The outrageous cost has NOTHING to do with it...)