re: Concessions at The Box

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They're weak addicts that can't go an hour or two without stuffing their face with anything remotely edible. "I want and need my gourmet concession stand food to keep me satisfied and satiated. I need my alcoholic beverage too."

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Wait, we aren’t supposed to have beers at ball games now? What the frick

Nothing better than the old diamond grill at old Alex box
Burgers right off the grill and the chili dogs were legit

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Is Skip ever on record speaking about the improvement of the concessions stands that I've never heard?

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Actually…

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These aren't mutually exclusive. Concessions can be dramatically improved without spending millions of TAF dollars.

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I wasn’t the one who brought Johnson’s name up. Someone else did. I just pointed out that if he is going to push for something it sure isn’t going to be better concessions.

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So there is no incentive to increase sales?

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Not at the expense of profit margin.

Aramark pays LSU a percentage of total revenue, not profits. For football and baseball, LSU’s commission starts at 45% of total sales and actually increases with total revenue (up to 52% of sales over $6.5 million annually).

So Aramark gets 55% (or less) of total sales, minus their operating costs and cost of goods sold.

In return for the heavy commission, Aramark gets a captive market with no competition. This arrangement has some consequences:

- Since LSU’s commission is based on revenue, not profit, Aramark has a strong incentive to focus their efforts on the highest-margin sales (for example, fountain drinks).

- Additionally, they have a fairly strong disincentive against waste, as the full burden of waste hits Aramark’s bottom line after LSU’s cut.

- The captive market means many people will buy something, even if Aramark doesn’t have whatever they actually want.

- Adding variety likely means A) adding items at lower margins or reducing margins on other items (due to economies of scale) and B) increasing waste, while C) having limited/disproportionate impact on total sales since everyone who buys food is buying from Aramark anyway.

The net result is that Aramark has little incentive to add variety/quality unless that variety/quality is going to bring in customers who would not have bought anything otherwise. The contract has language around quality and fan satisfaction but it’s a secondary motive that has to be actively enforced by LSU.

ETA: The TL;DR is that there are plenty of scenarios where a marginal increase in sales can actually be a net negative for Aramark’s bottom line, and that’s without getting into their margin expectations as a company (which may mean that increased sales at lower margins are viewed negatively, even if they are technically a positive for the bottom line).

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Do you people go to games for food?

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This IS Louisiana!

I got two cold shriveled up hot dogs for $8.80. And the frickers stopped taking cash

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They got rid of the jambalaya guy and the papa John’s stand.

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Papa Johns will be there when the season gets cranked up and basketball is over.

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Do you people go to games for food? Just get some damn peanuts and a coke and stop fricking crying. Biggest bitch made fanbase ever

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LOL Ok tough guy. Games are long and sometimes people have to work and don’t have time to eat before hand. Having decent options given the price isn’t asking for a lot.

I was able get suite tickets for one of the early non conference game. Ordered a burger off the menu they had at the bar and that thing was on point. Now it wasn’t cheap but it was damn worth what it cost. That wasn’t no Aramark burger that is for sure. Don’t understand why they can’t up their game some