Why Auburn finally became the last SEC school to add alcohol sales at sports events

At Auburn’s first basketball exhibition of the year, fridges were stocked around Neville Arena with Bud Light, Michelob Ultra and Miller Lite cans. It was the first time Auburn had ever introduced public alcohol sales at an athletics event.

It also meant Auburn was the final school in the SEC to finally begin selling beer, wine and hard seltzers. But why start now?

“I don’t think there was a specific reason why Auburn was last to come to this,” Auburn athletic director John Cohen said in a January interview with AL.com “But it takes a lot of thought. When you start this process, a great deal of research and thought has to go into it. I think Auburn has been in that process for a while.”

Cohen said when he got to Auburn, one of his immediate concerns was a “lack of premium options.” To Cohen, that included alcohol sales.

He has described an internal battle fighting a fan’s desire to watch a game at home. Watching a game at home, Cohen described, is both cheaper and more relaxing than the process of buying a ticket, traveling to the game and handling traffic and parking all before getting into the arena.

To Cohen, adding alcohol sales would combat the ease of watching at home as fans would no longer have to pass up the ability to drink a beer at home if they could do so at the arena.

“We’re asking them to make time that they sometimes don’t have and come experience Auburn University,” Cohen said. “In doing that, we have to make the environment as conducive and as enjoyable an opportunity as possible.”

Cohen has previous experience with an alcohol sales roll-out. In 2020, under Cohen’s administration at Mississippi State, Cohen launched public alcohol sales at football and basketball games. Mississippi State was the eighth SEC school to sell beer, wine and seltzers.

When describing why he felt comfortable adding alcohol sales to Auburn, Cohen looked back to what he called a successful push to bring alcohol sales to sports games at Starkville.

“There’s a school of thought that, there are studies that we have seen that actually show there is a decrease in let’s say behavioral issues with the introduction of beer,” Cohen said. “And there’s probably a variety of reasons for that. That’s not a sole reason.”

Still midway through the first basketball season since Auburn began selling alcohol, Cohen said he and his staff are experimenting with how to alter and adjust the program going forward as well as analyzing how successful — or not — selling beer and other drinks went.

In the short term, Cohen said alcohol sales will continue at basketball as he continues to develop.

There will also be sales at spring sports events including baseball and softball. Cohen said there is a new “premium” softball experience in the works for this season that has not yet been announced and Plainsman Park continues ongoing renovations.

Come the fall, Cohen expects Jordan-Hare Stadium will sell alcohol at football games.

Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at [email protected]