Suite life at Kenan Stadium includes beer, wine

The University of North Carolina is looking to sell luxury seats in the new Kenan Stadium end zone, and the Tar Heels are using a familiar tactic to draw fans.

Beer.

Yep, you’re not allowed to take alcohol into Kenan Stadium – wouldn’t want that on a college campus – but to help sell seats in the new end zone, the school will sell beer and wine to donors who can afford seats that start at $750, according to The News & Observer.

It’s a five-story, $70 million project that will rip down the old fieldhouse in Kenan and fill it with upscale seating.

You can’t help but be a bit sad about the coming changes – the old fieldhouse adds to the quaint and historic feel of Kenan. But you have to admit the additions to Kenan in recent decades have made the stadium even more impressive.

The new addition in the endzone should be first-rate as well. But the fact that the school will allow the sales of alcohol there is, well, amusing. And it’s a reminder of the uneasy, and inconsistent, relationship collegiate sports have with alcohol.

A UNC student who can walk home to Teague dorm would be pilloried for heading into the stadium with a can of Budweiser. But an alum who knocks down beers in a suite and then drives back to Greensboro … well, that’s another matter.

By the way, News14 has a story on the new facility here.