The South Carolina Board of Trustees approved the sale of alcohol in public areas at the school’s sporting events on Tuesday. Sales will begin on January 1, 2020 and will begin with men’s and women’s basketball, then carry over to baseball in the spring at the start of the season and then to football next season.

The athletics department, and school as a whole, took its time before diving head first into alcohol sales. The SEC was the only Power 5 conference that prohibited alcohol sales in public areas until changing its laws on May 31 of this year with a vote by school presidents. There were six schools that began serving alcohol at football games to start the season then a seventh, Ole Miss, joined the fray on Oct. 19.

South Carolina became the ninth school in the SEC to allow alcohol sales in public areas.

In early November, the University of Florida announced that it would begin selling alcohol in public areas for men’s basketball games, becoming the eighth school in the conference to begin to serve the average fan at some sporting event.

“It’s a situation where it’s part of the fan experience,” athletics director Ray Tanner said. “We’ve been studying this for quite a while now. We chose to wait and do some research, and now we’ve moved forward with the blessing of the Board of Trustees.”

One of the chief holdups, and reason for research, was to see how the sale of alcohol within public areas impacted the amount of alcohol-related incidents within the stadium. Tanner and the Board of Trustees were satisfied with the results of the findings.

“One thing that stood out mainly to me is that you’re always concerned about incidents when you have alcohol present,” Tanner said. “There seemed to be a trend that the incidents went down. There’s a lot of reporting from different schools that they didn’t have as many incidents when they served if they controlled serving, which we will. We’ll have more security, if necessary.”

LSU implemented alcohol sales prior to the start of football season and has released its initial findings. Associate athletics director Robert Munson said the athletics department brought in $2.259 million in net revenue from the sale of more than 280,000 beverages in the public areas of the stadium. The figure did not include sales from premium areas of Tiger Stadium.

During the discussion with the Board of Trustees, Tanner said he was hopeful that the sale of alcohol would bring in seven-figures worth of revenue for the athletics department, but noted that it's difficult to judge because of a variety of factors, including attendance, weather, kickoff times, etc.

“I think that there’s a certain number of people who believe it’s all driven by money, which is not the case," Tanner said. "We hope to be positive in the revenue category, but it’s not a number that is going to be earth-shattering to the bottom line of the athletics department.”

Aramark, the school's provider of concessions, will receive a 50/50 split of the revenue, which is standard in the industry. Aramark will also be the chief decider in what products are offered. By rule, multiple brands will have to be offered at sporting events.

South Carolina will look to increase security "if need be," Tanner said. But they will be diligent in being sure that alcohol is not served to minors. In fact, there will not be kiosks located near the student section at Williams-Brice Stadium for sales.

There are several rules and regulations set forth by the SEC for alcohol sales. Some of the main points include that beverages must be sold by vendors at stationary locations, and may not be sold within the seating areas. Only beer and wine may be served - no hard liquor or mixed drinks.

Identification checks must be conducted, limits must be established on the number of drinks purchased at one time by an individual and alcohol must be dispensed into cups, not sold in cans or bottles.

There are also designated stop times for the sale and distribution of alcohol: Football (end of 3rd quarter); Basketball (Men's-Second half 12-minute TV timeout; Women's-End of 3rd quarter); Baseball (end of the top of 7th inning); Softball (end of the top of the 5th inning); and Other Sports (At a designated time, no later than when 75% of the event's regulation length competition is scheduled to be completed).