Boosting Baseball Stadium Beer Sales With Local Microbrews
This paper presents a persuasive business proposal delivered to a county Parks Board, addressing a 40% decline in beer sales at a minor league baseball stadium. The proposal identifies falling concession revenue as a direct threat to county finances and argues that introducing locally microbrewed beer can reverse the trend. Drawing on national microbrewed beer sales data — including a 10.5% increase in dollar sales and 5.8% volume growth — the speaker argues that a $10,000 facility investment will yield a $50,000 first-year return, eliminate the need for property tax increases, and benefit the county, stadium patrons, and local breweries alike.
- Executive Summary: Brief overview of problem, proposal, and costs
- The Problem: Declining Beer Sales: 40% beer sales drop threatens county finances
- The Case for Microbrewed Beer: National craft beer growth supports product switch
- The Proposal and Its Costs: $10,000 investment with brewer cost-sharing
- Why This Is a Win-Win-Win: Benefits for county, patrons, and local breweries
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The proposal opens with a clear financial crisis — a 40% beer sales drop causing a net loss for the first time — immediately establishing urgency and relevance for the audience.
- The speaker uses specific, credible statistics (10.5% dollar growth and 5.8% volume growth in microbrewed beer nationally) to support the pivot from conventional to craft beer, grounding the argument in market evidence rather than opinion.
- The closing appeal is politically astute: it frames the investment as a way to avoid raising property taxes, directly addressing the audience's accountability to voters.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This paper demonstrates audience-centered persuasion: every argument is filtered through what matters most to the Parks Board — fiscal responsibility, constituent satisfaction, and political optics. The "win-win-win" framework ensures that no stakeholder group (county, customers, breweries) is left without a compelling reason to support the proposal, a classic technique for building coalition-based buy-in.
Structure breakdown
The paper begins with a bullet-point executive summary suitable for a written brief, then transitions into the full spoken proposal. The speech follows a classic problem-solution structure: establish the crisis, challenge inadequate alternatives, introduce the solution with market data, detail the cost-benefit case, and close with a memorable call to action. The structure is tight and well-sequenced for a short persuasive presentation.
Executive Summary
The opportunity and problem: beer sales at our baseball stadium declined substantially last year, due in part to reduced attendance and in part to the poor economy limiting patron spending at the park.
The reason for change: to restore beer spending to previous levels.
The proposed idea: place tap handles from a local microbrewery in the ballpark. This is feasible because the brewery will install the draught systems at no cost in order to gain the sales and exposure. We will need to make minor changes to the layout of our concession facilities at a cost of $10,000.
The benefit: beer sales will rebound, restoring profitability to stadium concessions.
The Problem: Declining Beer Sales
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 directly from the stadium come from the concession stands, which are operated by the Parks Board. Yet last year, beer sales slumped 40%. Two years ago, beer sales represented 50% of all sales; last year that figure had dropped to 37%. Beer carries the highest markup of any product we sell, so this sharp sales decline meant that the county lost money on the stadium last year — for the first time ever. If the county continues to lose money on concessions, it will have to raise property taxes to make up the budget shortfall.
The Case for Microbrewed Beer
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 simply don't want to spend 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 may be unwilling or unable to spend money on expensive luxuries, but drinking better beer is a luxury everyone can afford.
If we 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 stronger 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.
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.