The North Texas Football season and the Fouts Field Finale is drawing closer. It maybe the heat of summer but it is time to start preparing for the upcoming football season.

Preparing for the upcoming season is exactly what Lauren Fitzmorris, Director of Concessions is doing. Eagletalk.net had the opportunity to talk to Fitzmorris to get an idea of what goes on in her world.

When asked what is the most common complaint she hears about the concessions she answered “the price.” She said “we try to be reasonable” with the prices. The pricing structure is something

she does not just come up with on her own.  She is a member of the National Association of Collegiate Concessionaires (NACC) which gives her the opportunity to see what other colleges are offering and their pricing structures. There are some impressive members of the NACC including Baylor, Clemson, BYU, Air Force, Michigan State, Georgia Tech, Penn State, Texas A & M, Nebraska, Notre Dame just to name a few.  

Fitzmorris points out that no matter what closed venue someone attends like a football game, basketball game, movie theatre or concert their concession prices are slightly higher than a fast food restaurant, gas station or other discount eatery. She is sensitive to the pricing issue and keeps North Texas pricing reasonable compared to other programs.

Over the years, Fouts Field has had some advantages over some other college stadiums. At Fouts Field hamburgers, hot dogs and other cooked foods are cooked at the stadium. Some other colleges have had to cook their food at the school cafeteria and bring it across campus to their stadium. The result for them is cold foods while North Texas Fans do get hot food. On game day, some of the food is pre-cooked in anticipation of the crowds.

Another advantage to cooking the food on site is when concession people see the lines have gotten longer they can add more food on the grill to bring those lines down. When bringing food from across campus, they are not aware of the lines and may bring too little food and as a result they have longer lines.

When preparing the food for a game, they have to make an educated guess concerning how many fans will show up. It’s based on previous experience with the visiting team. The stats get them pretty

close to how much food and drink they will need. They have to consider the weather in their decisions. For example, when it is hot they sell more drinks but how many more is an educated guess. If they guess there will be more fans than show up they will have cooked too much food but it does result in faster lines and the customer is happy. If they under guess, they will not have enough food ready and results in longer lines and the customer is upset.

Needless to say it really is a balancing act for Fitzmorris and her staff.

Right now Fitzmorris is getting the football schedule, and is ready to prepare a spread sheet in order to determine the work schedule dates for the upcoming football season. When the times arrives, she will also get all the other sports schedules because she has to plan the workload for those events too. So she is at the mercy of the schedule makers.

There are seven concessions stands at Fouts Field which Fitzmorris manages. There are the two main concessions stands, one on each side of the stadium that requires 20-25 volunteers and pays $650.00 per game. There are two hamburger stands which require four volunteers per stand, two drink stands that require two volunteers and one Dipping Dot stand that needs two volunteers. She also oversees the volunteers that go into the stands to sell their wares. All these volunteers earn 10% of the sales they generate. 

ain using new groups. If anyone would like their group to use North Texas as a fundraiser, just contact her at 940-565-2847. She will give all the information and further details.

Some of the regular groups which have been working the concession stands have been the Denton High School Orchestra, Ryan Band, First Presbyterian Church and Boy Scout Troup #140.

In basketball there is more turnover in volunteer help because there are only six volunteers required per game and there are more games.

There are some outside vendors at the football games which she oversees. They sell funnel cakes, corn dogs, B-B-Q, kettle corn, pretzels, sausages, smoothies etc. These vendors pay North Texas a portion of their revenues for rental payments. It is based on a sliding scale with the more they make the more they pay North Texas. So, Fitzmorris tells North Texas to buy from them. The more they sell the more North Texas Athletics make. North Texas does supply all of the outside vendors the Cokes and gives them a $1.00 for each one sold.

When asked if she considers changing up the menu in some way Fitzmorris said “I think about it from time to time.” She went on to add “with the cooking facilities at the new stadium” it might be easier to bring new items to the counter. She is looking at other colleges to see what success they have had with new items and which ones were successful.

She has been considering “adding a grilled chicken sandwich” and “some other healthy foods” at the new stadium but stated nothing is in stone at this time.

The new stadium will have somewhere around 9-10 concession stands to be used for North Texas sales so there will be opportunities to add new items. The trick is to sell items that fans will purchase while not competing against the vendors, and make a profit for North Texas Athletics after paying the volunteers. 

In addition to the 9-10 North Texas concession stands at the new stadium, there will also be somewhere around six vendor concession stands. So there will no longer be vendors in the aisles causing traffic concerns like they do now. Some of the concession stands will even have two vendors side by side. So they project they can handle up to 12 outside vendors without any problems. 

All the profits go into the Athletic Department General Fund and supports all athletic programs. Is it important for North Texas fans to purchase items at the stadium even if they maybe higher than discount stores. Concession sales is one reason why big time programs do not what to travel and would rather spend money to bring in out of conference teams. It was something a former LSU AD pointed out to his fans.

Fitzmorris did not give us the actual profit  North Texas makes during game day, so are using a made up number to point out why purchasing products from North Texas is important.

Let’s say after all expenses taken out, North Texas makes $2.00 a drink. When you have 20,000 fans in the stands, they make $40,000 a game on drinks. If you have 40,000 fans you make $80,000 a game. If you have 80,000 fans you make $160,000 a game.

At the 80,000 fan level drinks alone can almost pay for the visiting team. When you add in all the food and drinks sold at the concession stands a program can pay for a good team to make a visit and still not touch the money made on ticket sales.

If you look at the 80,000 fan level and use a conservative $20.00 spent in the concession stands per person that is $1,600,000 made off food and beverage sales per game. For six home games it comes to $9.6 million a season. (Several years ago an SEC AD said he figured $40.00 per person in concessions.) A lot of teams will travel for $300,000-400,000 for a one game payout.