Big First Year for Beer Garden at Griz Football Games

There was a welcome addition to Griz football games this season in the form of the new beer garden at Washington-Grizzly Stadium. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying a designated area to consume alcoholic beverages had anything to do with how the season played out.....but the Griz also didn't win the Brawl of the Wild as well as a playoff game in the previous few seasons before the beer garden opened. <Insert shoulder-shrugging emoji here.>

Credit: Nick Chrestenson

Did you visit the beer garden last season?

The beer garden, located in a fenced-off area just off the concourse and directly behind GrizVision, was a welcome sight for many. It allowed fans the opportunity to get beer and wine 90 minutes before kickoff. That meant if you wanted to drink you didn't have to wait outside until the last minute before heading into the game. And although heading out to the parking lot might have saved you a few dollars, hitting the beer garden at halftime, or any other time while it remained open, seemed like an easier alternative than leaving the stadium and coming back in.

We'll call it a win!

I'm not sure if this comes as much of a surprise when you're talking about Griz fans but year one of the beer garden has been deemed a success! A story from KPAX has an interesting breakdown of how much money was made from alcohol sales and where that money gets distributed to. The big number of interest is the more than $133,000 that was grossed from the six regular-season games that were played at WA-GRIZ. That averages out to just over $22,000 per game.

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Did you know about the other beer gardens?

It sounds like a successful first season of the beer garden will be used to build upon the next as they find ways to make the fan experience even better. So be on the lookout for tweaks and changes when you visit the beer garden at a Griz game next season. Oh, and if you didn't realize, they also have a beer garden at Dahlberg Arena for Griz and Lady Griz basketball games now!

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Filed Under: griz football

Categories: Events, Missoula News