University of Georgia Athletics
Workers Busy At Sanford Stadium
July 13, 2015 | Football
By John Frierson
UGAAA Staff Writer
ATHENS, Ga. — It’s not football season quite yet, 53 days and counting as of Monday afternoonn, but that doesn’t mean things are calm and quiet at Sanford Stadium. They’re anything but, in fact.
Inside and out, from field level to the SkyClub, from restrooms and concessions stands to Big Ass Fans (actual product name), improvements are being made throughout the 86-year-old home of Georgia football.
It’s all about improving the fan experience, said Melvin Robinson, Georgia’s Assistant Athletic Director for Facility Operations.
“The fan experience is so big and when they see the improvements we’re doing at the stadium, they’re going to be blown away,” Robinson said. “And we’re doing it in three phases. We know we can’t do it all right now, but phase one is going on right now and it’s going well.”
At the UGA Athletic Association Board of Directors meeting in February, J. Reid Parker Director of Athletics Greg McGarity announced plans for nearly $4 million improvements, including refurbishing the SkyClub lounge area and major changes to concessions stands and restrooms. Georgia is also installing large fans from the company Big Ass Fans — 62 fans in all, some 6.6 feet in diameter and others 10 feet across — in many spots on the 100 level.
Like many other improvements in the three-year improvement plan for the stadium, more fans will go up next year. When you have home games in September and early October, and the Bulldogs play four of their first five between the hedges this season, any increased air movement in the concourses will be well received.
While some of this summer’s projects at Sanford Stadium are all about aesthetics, like a deep, deep cleaning of the facility’s exterior that will begin this week and cleaning every seat in the house, most at their core are about improving the fan experience.
Simply put, Robinson said, Georgia is working toward a “nicer” stadium. It will be nicer this season than last season, and with more upgrades in the offseason, nicer in 2016 than this fall.
Nicer bathrooms, a nicer SkyClub, immense fans for nicer breezes in the concourses, as well as faster moving concessions lines so fans spend less time away from the action.
“As you see attendance in a lot of sports trending down, folks are saying, I’m more comfortable at home. I can go in the basement where I’ve got a 60-inch television on the wall and I’ve got my adult beverages and my restroom right here, and I can take a nap if I want to,” Robinson said. “So how do we pull that guy out of his basement, who used to come to the games? You have to make every part of the experience as good as it can be.”
When your facility holds 92,746 people, as Sanford Stadium does, there will inevitably be lines: to get in the stadium, to the restroom and for a bottle of water or a Coke or maybe even a fried Twinkie. All Georgia can do, and significant work is being done this summer to make it happen, is try to keep those lines moving as quickly as possible, and make the wait as pleasant as possible.
The fans will make some of the waits a little bitter, while changes in the stadium’s concessions systems will make the waits shorter. Georgia and its concessions partner, Aramark, are putting in a high-tech point-of-sale system that will shorten transaction times. For the first time, credit and debit cards will be accepted at all concession stands.
“In the past, our debit and credit card availability was at all the permanent concession stands, but it was at maybe 60 percent of the actual registers,” said John Bateman, Assistant Athletic Director for Marketing. “Now, every point-of-sale terminal is going to have debit and credit card availability.”
And processing those card transactions with the new system will be dramatically quicker, Bateman said. The new point-of-sale system will also monitor inventory in real time, which will help keep the stands fully stocked.
“Any way we can cut out time in line, we’re going to look to do it,” Bateman said. “We want to get our fans back to the stands as quickly as possible, to enjoy the game.”
Another way Georgia is doing that is by, for the second straight season, converting some of its souvenir stands into concessions stands, Bateman said. The demand for concessions grows each season — during the opener against Clemson last season Georgia sold 62,000 bottles of Dasani water, Bateman said, breaking the previous single-game record by about 14,000 bottles — while fans have almost countless options for buying Bulldogs merchandise outside the stadium.
Four souvenir stands were converted before last season and three more will be for this season.
“We don’t know exactly how many fans came through (the four converted stands last season), but we know the sales numbers. ... We can see that we serviced a considerable amount of fans in these four locations where fans were, before, having to go to other locations,” Bateman said.
Georgia has also replaced the red mesh screens at the concession stands on the 100 level and on the west end under the bridge with roll-down doors. This will make communication between customers and staff much easier, Bateman said.
The menus at the concessions stands are also getting a hard look and items that haven’t moved in recent seasons may be removed.
“Again, it’s geared toward speed of service. The less items you’ve got to choose from, the less decisions you have to make,” Bateman said. “Things that take time to prepare and that we’re not selling that much of, those are the things that we’re in the process of looking at taking off the menu.”
SkyClub visitors in the past will hardly recognize it when they arrive for Georgia’s Sept. 5 season opener against Louisiana-Monroe. The SkyClub is undergoing a massive top-to-bottom refurbishment, from new flooring to graphics and other items on the walls celebrating the history of Georgia football.
In the SkyClub, as well as the upgraded restrooms in the stadium, more branding and graphics will also be on display.
“We want people to know where they are and why they’re there,” Robinson said, “to cheer for the Bulldogs.”
Robinson said all of the work at the stadium is scheduled to be completed by Aug. 10.
John Frierson is a staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men’s Hall of Fame at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex. You can follow him on Twitter: @TheFrierson and @ITAHallofFame.