The SEC voted during its spring meetings on Friday to lift a ban on selling alcoholic beverages in public areas at its athletic events.
The conference’s new policy, which opens another revenue stream for its member schools, goes into effect Aug. 1. But the policy does not require schools to sell alcoholic beverages, which will be limited to beer and wine, but leaves the decision up to each school.
“Our policy governing alcohol sales has been a source of considerable discussion and respectful debate among our member universities in recent years,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in a statement. “As a Conference, we have been observant of trends in the sale and consumption of alcohol at collegiate sporting events and have drawn upon the experiences and insights of our member schools which have responsibly established limited alcohol sales within controlled spaces and premium seating areas.”
According to the release, the new policy will require “the establishment of designated stationary sales locations, a restriction prohibiting sales by vendors in seating areas, a limit on the number of alcoholic beverages purchased per transaction and designated times that sales must cease specific to each athletics event.”
The policy, which will limit individuals to purchasing one drink at a time, also comes with designated stop times such as the end of the third quarter during football games and the second-half 12-minute TV timeout during men’s basketball games. Women’s basketball alcohol sales will end following the completion of the third quarter, baseball at the top of the seventh inning and softball at the top of the fifth.