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Coastal Carolina grabbed the internet’s attention Monday in announcing that concessions for next years’ home football games will be on the house.
Marketing it as the “CCU Kickoff Meal Deal,” Coastal Carolina announced the new promotion as part of its deal with concessionaire Aramark. Evidently, there is no limit to how many times “ticket-purchasing patrons” can down hot dogs, popcorns or nachos, so long as they scan a new “soon-to-be released” CCU athletics app each time they get in line for more.
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At first glance, offering free concessions might seem like a costly gamble for a non-Power 4 athletic department generating around $45 million annually. But on paper, at least, Coastal Carolina has quite literally nothing to lose.
That’s because the school has for several years reported $0 in revenue from concessions, programs, novelties and parking on its annual athletics revenue and expense disclosures to the NCAA. In 2022-23, it was one of only two FBS public universities to throw up the goose egg on this line item, according to Sportico’s college sports finances database.
Matt Harman, Coastal Carolina’s senior associate AD and chief revenue officer, explained that this stems from the school’s agreement with Aramark.
CCU signed a $43.4 million dining services contract with the company in 2020, running through July 2027. The deal covers student dining as well as athletics concessions, meaning the athletics department has never directly collected revenue from game-day food sales.
The “meal deal” was the brainchild of the first-year athletic director Chance Miller, who previously worked at South Carolina—which has experimented with similar concession promotions for its men’s and women’s basketball games.
“We are trying to get creative and forward thinking,” Harman said. “But honestly, there is a lot of operational stuff to figure out with this.”
This past football season, Coastal Carolina average home attendance was 18,622. This, according to D1.ticker’s attendance tracker, marks an 8.1% increase over the previous year. The Sun Belt Conference member, which finished with a 6-7 record in 2024, is set to host Charleston Southern in its home opener on Sept. 6.
As athletic departments nationwide look to squeeze every dollar from existing revenue streams, CCU’s arrangement with Aramark makes this one of the easiest financial sacrifices a school can make in the name of fan appreciation. That said, Harman insisted that as an auxiliary unit of the university, athletics still was mindful of its financial impact.
This isn’t the first time the Chanticleers have tried with giveaways to boost attendance. As Sporticopreviously reported, the school last fall offered a “We Win, You Win, Money Back Guarantee” promotion, where it offered to refund season-ticket holders the full cost of their tickets if the men’s and women’s basketball team won a combined 35 games over the 2024-25 season. Unfortunately—or fortunately—the teams fell two W’s short of that benchmark, after the men compiled just 10 wins.
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