Opportunity/Problem Is That at Our

¶ … opportunity/problem is that at our baseball stadium, beer sales declined substantially last year, partly due to attendance and partly due to the poor economy reducing spending of patrons at the park

The reason for the change is to bring return beer spending to previous levels

The proposed idea is to place tap handles from the local microbrewery in the ballpark

The idea is feasible because the brewery will install the draught systems for free in order to get the sales and exposure. We will need to make some minor changes to the layout of our concession facilities at a cost of $10,000

The benefits are that beer sales will rebound

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the Parks Board.

As you know, five years ago the county helped finance our new minor league baseball stadium. The sole revenues that the county receives from the stadium directly come from the concession stands, which are operated by the Parks Board. Yet last year, beer sales slumped 40%. Two years ago, beer sales were 50% of all sales and last year that had dropped to 37%. Beer has the highest markup of any product we sell, so this sharp sales decline has meant that the county lost money on the stadium last year, for the first time. If the county continues to lose money on concessions, it will have to raise property taxes to make up the budget shortfall.

I have a better idea. We can spur sales at the concession stands by changing our product offerings. We have had some great suggestions so far - I especially like the idea of installing a mini-donut machine - but those ideas are not going to make up the budget shortfall. To do that, we must attack the problem at its source - beer. With the economic downturn, beer sales are slumping. People just don't want to drink as much. But if you look at sales of microbrewed beer, those sales are not slumping. In fact, dollar sales of microbrewed beer increased 10.5% last year, and volume sales were up 5.8%. People are either unwilling or unable to spend money on expensive luxuries, but drinking better beer is a luxury everyone can afford.

I think that if we can bring in beer from local microbreweries and sell it at our ballpark, we can restore beer sales. People may not be as willing to pay $5 for a regular beer, but they will pay $7 for something better. It's a better value proposition for the customer and it gives us a higher markup.

So not only do we sell more beer, but we make more money on every beer we sell. It will cost us $10,000 to make the changes to the layout of our concessions, but the majority of the cost will come from the brewers themselves, who stand to gain a lot of new customers.