As she tried to rally support for a carefully cultivated list of priorities, new UC Berkeley chancellor Carol Christ was frustrated by a question about whether Cal should sell beer at college football games.

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Latest line: A good week for Quintero, bad one for Rendon “It’s such a stupid question,” she said after a news conference Tuesday when a Bay Area News Group reporter asked her what she thought about the idea, proposed in a recently released 2017-18 budget plan first reported by the school’s student newspaper, The Daily Californian.

What’s no joke are the athletic department’s finances. The department lost $22 million last year, making it the most debt-saddled program in the country. A good portion of the problem is tied to debt service payments on the Memorial Stadium renovation, for which Cal Athletics owes some $400 million.

Christ has told the department that like the rest of the campus, which faces a $110 million deficit, athletics must get out of the hole by 2020.

In addition to selling alcohol at games, the department is considering moving its track and soccer teams out of Edwards Stadium near the southeast corner of campus so that the campus can build housing on the site, as well as selling naming rights for Memorial Stadium.

Dozens of colleges across the country allow alcohol sales at college games, and alcohol has been sold at other events on campus property, including at the Greek Theatre.

While Christ might have been annoyed by the beer question Tuesday, saying it was well down her list of priorities, she said during a recent interview with this news organization that she has spent a good deal of time considering campus athletics.

“Along with free speech, I knew that athletics was going to be one of those things, whether I chose it or not, that would be on my plate when I became chancellor,” she said.

During Tuesday’s news conference, Christ appeared to lean toward the idea that some portion of the debt related to the seismic work done on Memorial Stadium should move from the athletic department’s balance sheet to the campus’ as part of a broader agreement.

No final decisions have been made, including about whether Cal fans will be able to buy a beer at a game anytime soon.