College football is big business. The money generated by the football program fuels numerous renovations and improvements to athletic facilities, pays for travel and uniforms for itself and the non-revenue sports and also facilitates recruiting for the entire athletics department.
But what college football does from a financial standpoint extends far beyond the business handled in the Bryan Building or Humphrey Coliseum. It even supercedes campus boundaries. The full measure of the sport’s financial benefits can only be seen when the scope is widened to include the entire city of Starkville.
On a normal weekend in Starkville, a city composed of roughly 20,000 residents and another 16,000 university students, the community operates within a modest economic model kept stable by transplant funds from other counties via students.
However, when Mississippi State football hosts a home contest at Davis Wade Stadium, the city receives a huge economic boon, according to economics professor Charles Campbell.
“The areas of the local economy that are most heavily impacted are restaurants, hotels/motels, clothing and specialty retailers specializing in memorabilia and MSU clothing, grocery stores, gas stations, liquor stores, and, of course, Wal-Mart,” Campbell said. “The total impact on the local economy is probably in the neighborhood of $80-$120 per out of town visitor, so it is a very large impact.”
Considering last season’s home football game attendance average was 47,667 and a majority of those are out of town visitors, even modest calculations place the economical impact on the city at between $2.5 and $3.5 million.
Arma de la Cruz, the vice president of tourism for the Greater Starkville Development Partnership said, using the city’s food and beverage tax as an indicator, that the impact on Starkville’s overall economy is about 35 percent.
Restaurants see a large part of this influx out of human necessity, said John Miller, the manager of Applebee’s Grill and Bar on Miss. Highway 12.
“It’s a no-brainer. They have to eat,” Miller said. “We see an influx of business to the tune of about 20 percent. The Friday nights (before the game) are much stronger, and of course the moment the game lets out we are extremely busy.”
Miller said the company also offers party platters to its clientele on game days and will even prepare them outside of normal business hours if ordered in advance.
“(It’s) something to enhance the tailgating experience,” Miller said.
Another local restaurant, The Veranda, took a different approach to dealing with football tailgaters, turning the restaurant into a barbecue-induced haven for game-day travelers.
“We entered into a partnership with WKBB in Columbus and they come out and do a live radio show at our restaurant with JT from the JT and Dave radio show, and (former MSU quarterback) John Bond,” said Veranda owner Jay Yates.
“Then we also teamed up with Bryan Foods and Northeast Mississippi Bottling Co. to provide us with Two Brothers barbecue and Coors products, all for $12 (per person).”
The special has become a staple of the game-day atmosphere in Starkville, and Yates reports increases in sales of up to 35 percent over a normal weekend.
“Those are the times you gear your business around. On (home game) weekends you just do all you can do and try to get people in and out as quickly as possible,” Yates said. “Early games are better for business because with late games, people do tend to tailgate more around the stadium and people just trickle through (the restaurant) all during the day.”
That’s where Yates and friend Rick Welch, owner of Rick’s Caf, part ways. Welch says the later games are far more beneficial to his and other nightlife and hotel establishments in Starkville.
“After early games people tend to go back home earlier,” Welch said. “Afternoon and night games give people a chance to maybe stay the night and enjoy some entertainment.”
Welch said on game weekends he might see up to a 50 percent increase in business, and even more on certain dates.
“Homecoming is a big weekend,” Welch said. “I’ve been here for 10 years and that weekend usually brings old friends back into town, so we get a chance to catch up and have fun. Also the Egg Bowl is a huge draw on the years it is here. Thanksgiving is traditionally a dead time for bars, so that makes a big difference.”
Private establishments are not the only ones who benefit from the game-day surge. Local government also claims a piece of the pie.
“Game days are very important to Starkville because without them, we wouldn’t get that big influx of visitors spending their money at one time,” Cruz said. “That influx makes us able to sponsor a lot of community events like the Bulldog Bash, the Magnolia Independent Film Festival, the Cotton District Arts Festival, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, and a number of events at the Mississippi Horse Park.”
Cruz also says that once rolling, these economic effects tend to snowball into long-term financial benefits.
“The extra money helps the community two-fold because these events make Starkville a more attractive retirement community for retirees with expendable income, and also makes the city more appealing to better qualified professors and university staff.
While all home games provide a huge boost to the economy, several businesses report noticeable differences based on the on-field state of the football program.
“I always see a boost,” Welch said, “but when the team is doing better, I do better. It’s directly proportional.”
Yates said that a winning football team has the ability to jumpstart local sales at The Veranda during the week, also.
“Winning has a big impact on the weekend crowd, but we get even bigger residual effects all during the week,” Yates said. “Game days are the gravy in the restaurant business. The meat and potatoes are the business you do during the week, and when the team is winning, like this season since the Florida game, people are just more likely to go out and be excited, and want to spend more money.
“The best example of this that I can remember is (in 2000) when we beat Florida and Auburn at home on back to back weekends,” Yates added. “That entire week people were happy; eating out for lunch, hanging out with friends. But when you’re losing, people are just ready to go home.”