Kohl Center, LaBahn Arena to begin serving alcohol

By Seth Kruger SPORTS EDITOR

Wisconsin Athletic Director

Chris McIntosh announced a commitment to an “enhanced customer journey and experience” at Wisconsin sporting events on Thursday, Aug. 3, by beginning to serve alcohol at the Kohl Center and LaBahn Arena.

Beginning this fall, the Kohl Center and LaBahn Arena will provide beer, wine, hard seltzers and other pre-packaged alcoholic beverages at Wisconsin hockey and basketball games.

The university plans to continue their increased alcoholfree programming and awareness for alcohol-related responsible behavior, according to the UW Athletics website.

Wisconsin will now become the 10th Big Ten school to introduce similar options to basketball and hockey gameday environments, according to the announcement.

As more teams join the Big Ten — most recently USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington — Wisconsin continues to be surrounded by increasing amounts of alcohol sales at football games. Alcohol sales are permitted at all four of the joining schools’ football stadiums.

University athletics officials also announced a commitment to greater fan engagement through increased surveying and marketing efforts as well as improved in-venue gameday production, accomplished through a new partnership between UW Athletics and Van Wagner.