Extra Points: Game Day Experience

by Lee Pace

Paul Miller was being recruited out of the town of Ayden as a quarterback in the spring of 1968 and was given a tour of Kenan Field House and the stadium by head coach Bill Dooley. Several sections of prime seats had been up-fitted with aluminum benches to replace the aging wooden seats, and Dooley put his arm around Miller and gestured into the vast expanse of the venue.

"Son," Dooley said in his deep Southern drawl, "one day they will all be covered in shiny aluminum!"

Dooley was dead on—in time every seat in the stadium was made of aluminum and for added comfort, back supports were installed over a period of years. The good part of those initiatives from half a century ago was that each fan could lean back into some support. The bad part was that the aluminum panel used for the comfort of the fan in row L was bothersome and confining to the guy behind him in Row M—particularly for tall individuals with knees that needed some space to stretch out.

What goes around, comes around in the business of college football and venue management and modernization.

The game-changer this year in Kenan Stadium when the Tar Heels host Central Florida on Sept. 15 is the re-seating of the lower bowl (excluding the 1997 expansion of The Tar Pit on the west side) and the upper decks with 22-inch wide individual chairs with arm rests and pop-up bottoms that significantly improve comfort as well as access and egress into the interior of the seating sections. Two sections were rebuilt with the new seats for the 2017 season and were embraced by the ticket-buying public, leading Carolina athletics administration to revamp the entire stadium this year.

"We conduct extensive surveys of our fans every year, and among the things we ask them is, 'What are the game-day elements that are really important that you are not satisfied with?'" says Rick Steinbacher, senior associate athletic director. "Seat comfort was a huge one. Fans told us that if you were in the middle of those aluminum bleachers, you couldn't get out without the entire aisle basically emptying."

From seats to concessions to tailgating to traffic to something as simple as access to free cold water and misting on a hot afternoon, Carolina fans will find a bevy of improvements to the Tar Heel football game day experience this year. Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham, Steinbacher and a battalion of staffers and volunteers have listened to their fan base and potential ticket-buyers and responded with many tweaks and twists to make Saturdays in Chapel Hill a fun time for all.

"The new seating configuration changes the look, it changes the attitude, it changes the opportunity for Joe Fan to really have a positive experience," says John Brunner, associate athletic director for event management. "It's been the trigger to do some of these fan initiatives to really reset things in and around Kenan Stadium. We asked, 'What are some of those common sense and 'easy wins' we can do?'"

The 2017 season marked the Chapel Hill debut of The Tailgate Guys, an entertainment service company offering tents, tables, chairs, coolers, televisions, assorted accouterments as well as setup and takedown labor in various spots around Kenan Stadium, most notably the west end amphitheater. The service was so well-received that the company has essentially sold out all of its amphitheater space and has expanded into more tent locations around the Bell Tower and the woods around the stadium.

Aaron Wright, a 1997 Carolina grad and a Rams Club member, has for several years set up with friends their own tents on Polk Place near South Building. When The Tailgate Guys service was announced in 2017, they arranged for a tent in the woods outside Gate 6 on the north side of the stadium. Their tailgate groups last year averaged having seven families involved and upwards of 50 guests each Saturday. They have expanded their commitment in 2018.

"The convenience, the ease of being able to walk up and having everything in place is awesome," Wright says. "And when we leave, they handle all of the clean up. Our group this year has expanded and will hopefully continue to grow year after year."

The Tar Heel Ambassador program started in the early 2010s and has been ratcheted up for 2018 with some two dozen "ambassadors" roaming the parking lots and extremities of the stadium before kickoff and then moving inside during the game  to offer help and answer questions.

"Is a mother struggling with a kid trying to carry concessions, is there a sad kid who could use a band-aid or an ice cream cone?" says Brunner. "If we can offer a smile or lend a hand or answer a question, then we've provided a needed service."

Another element from the customer-service domain is a new Text Fan Service with a number available to send a message about unruly fan behavior, a malfunctioning restroom, a health or safety issue (919-887-9910 is the number). The Tar Heel Game Day App and a Twitter feed (@Goheelsgameday) will constantly push out information on traffic, parking, weather and other important issues.

"We want to communicate like crazy," Steinbacher says. "If there's an accident on one road impacting traffic flow, we'll get that out and you might be able to work your way around it if you know about it."

Carolina has switched its concession and merchandise purveyors with the idea of providing higher quality dining and shopping in Kenan Stadium.

Now managing the food and beverage operation is Aramark Sports and Entertainment, a company that handles NFL arenas and other major college venues, including several in the Southeastern Conference. One of Aramark's initiatives when it comes into a new market is to identify and recruit popular local vendors to have a stadium presence, and now for the third straight year Merritt's famous BLT sandwiches will be available at Tar Heel games. IP3, a popular Chapel Hill pizzeria and sandwich shop, will be onsite making its legendary cheese steak sandwiches.

Frutta Bowls, a vendor offering healthy bowls and drinks built around acai, oatmeal, fruit and an array of natural ingredients, will have a presence, and fans will have fun with Etuk, a three-wheeled hotdog trolley that will roam the parking lots before the game and the concourse after kickoff. Hunt Brothers has taken over the pizza concession and will bake fresh pizza on-site throughout the game. Previously, pizza was cooked off-site and delivered once before the game and again at halftime.

The infrastructure has been reconfigured as well, with the more confined concession stands under the concrete structure of the stadium selling the staples, the quick-in-and-out items like drinks, pretzels, candy and popcorn. The perimeter areas nearer the fences enclosing the stadium are now used for the specialty vendors.

DyeHard Fan Supply promises to offer an "elevated shopping experience," Steinbacher says, with more premium clothing, accessories and souvenirs. Lines like Vineyard Vines and Peter Millar will be included in the offerings in tents on the north and south sides of the stadium and in the retail store on the ground floor of the Loudermilk Center.

Getting into the stadium quickly is important, and fans are now well-acclimated to the "clear bag policy" that has become the industry standard for sports events nationwide. Event management has invested in some hard-wired scanning pedestals designed to let fans self-scan their tickets and cut down on the speed of entering the stadium.

"An usher having to scan your ticket probably takes three to four seconds," Steinbacher says. "These pedestals are one second and boom, you're in. If they work as well as we think they will, we'll have more for next year."

There will be six free water stations positioned throughout the stadium, and on hot days, misting fans will be working to provide a dollop of refreshing cool.

Among new ticket and seating opportunities in 2018 is The Touchdown Club, which is located on the east-end field level. Fans can purchase tickets as individuals or groups  to watch the game from ground floor inside the confines of the artificial surface training area in front of The Blue Zone. The admission price includes food and beverage.

Students in The Tar Pit in the west end zone will notice a new permanent hutch that will serve as headquarters for a DJ and two "New Voices in the Tar Pit" who will lead cheers and chants among the student body. DJ Forge is the university's official "DJ" for football and basketball games, and he'll be spinning tunes pre- and post-game. A modern rendition of the old "mic man" concept from many years ago has been instituted, with a pair of entertaining young fans named Yates McConnell and Hunter Collins set to lead and direct student involvement in what to cheer, when to cheer.

It adds up a significant tweaking of the game day experience in and around Tar Heel home games. Sadly, Bill Dooley passed in 2016, too early to see the latest iteration of Kenan Stadium seats.


Carolina graduate Lee Pace (1979) has written "Extra Points" since 1990 and reported from the sidelines for the Tar Heel radio network since 2004. Reach him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @LeePaceTweet.

Scoreboard Slider

University of North Carolina Athletics

Related Videos