Nebraska's Got The Hardest Drinking College Football Fans, According To This Very Official Survey
The Cornhuskers? Oh, they are drinking at those games.
If you're a Nebraska football fan, depending on your relationship to alcohol, I have good or bad news for you: According to a survey by sports betting website Vegas Insider, University of Nebraska-Lincoln topped the list of hardest drinking college football fans, averaging 4.5 drinks per game and spending an average of $26.18 each on booze. Go Cornhuskers?
The survey gathered responses from over 2,000 NCAA Division 1 football fans who were 21 or over about their game day drinking habits. University of Minnesota followed Nebraska with an average of 4 drinks per game and $26.80 average spend, and University of Wisconsin came in third with an average of 3.9 drinks per game and $23.02 average spend.
The rankings list 25 total schools, and the bottom of the list is rounded out by the relatively teetotaling University of Georgia (avg. 3 drinks for $27.70), the University of Texas (avg. 3 drinks for $24.54), and Texas A&M (avg. 2.9 drinks for $22.25).
The survey also gathered data on the top five pregamers, fan bases most likely to start their drinking before entering the arena. Louisiana State University came out on top, followed by Michigan State, University of Arizona, The University of California, and Clemson University in South Carolina.
Five schools earned the distinction of having the overall "biggest lightweight" drinkers: Kansas State, University of Oklahoma, Florida State, Georgia Tech, and the University of Michigan. What does "biggest lightweights" mean? According to Vegas Insider, "fans of these teams are the most likely to miss some or all of the game due to drinking too much."
The methodology of these findings is not perfect, by any means. For one thing, the average age of survey-takers was 31 years old, so it seems like a stronger representation of alumni fans than current college students. Which is fine, I guess, but it does feel less like a referendum on a college's culture if it skews toward people who have, like, a baby or a mortgage or whatever. (I do not know any 31-year-olds that have either of those, but I have seen it in movies.)
It's unclear what the average spend would have to do with how much a football fan would be drinking, especially since there doesn't appear to be much of a correlation. I mean, you're in a college town. The beer is cheap. What else is there to know? Plus, if you're trying to drink your way through a college football game, chances are you're not worried about tabulating each Bud Light in your budgeting spreadsheet.
The whole "lightweight" category seems murky, but as a lightweight, it's possible I'm being defensive. Kind of like in football! Do you get it? Haha! This is a roundabout way of saying I went to a Big 10 school for one year and could not handle it.
If your school is on the list, congrats! You now have something to hold over your rival team's head until the end of time—or whenever the next time a survey like this happens.