Athletics offers specialty items and student discounts at concession stands

From fajita nachos to Chick-fil-A sandwiches, individuals attending UTRGV volleyball, basketball and baseball home games will now have a wider selection of refreshments to choose and enjoy from the concession stands.

Along with the recently added expansion to the menu, current UTRGV students will now receive 50% off regular items and 25% off specialty items by displaying their student ID.

“As part of our initiative to improve fan engagement and expand fan experience, we identified a few things that we could do better and concession is one of those,” said James Martinez, senior associate athletic director for business operations. 

Martinez said he looked at “common” concession items the stands lacked and obtained them by connecting with Sodexo, a partner of the university.

He said by working with Sodexo, they have managed to improve the concession stands by getting better prices, better quality and more convenience.

The Athletics’ concession stands now offer Chick-fil-A sandwiches, Pizza Hut pepperoni or cheese pizzas and fajita nachos as specialty items.

Jonah Goldberg, associate athletic director for communications, said because they have to order the specialty items from Sodexo to be delivered before every game, there is a limited number for sale.

Martinez said some fans have already come back with recommendations, such as adding pico de gallo to the fajita nachos, sauces for the Chick-fil-A sandwiches and adding a supreme pizza option from Pizza Hut.

“There’s been some other specific, what I call, more [Rio Grande Valley] centric requests,” he said. “So, you have corn-in-a-cup kind of stuff we’re looking at doing. … It’s just a matter of making sure [we’re] making [a] quantity that doesn’t go to waste, and so far, we’ve been very fortunate with everything.”

Since rolling out these changes, the specialty items have sold out at every event so far, as fans start to find out about the new items, Martinez said.

“What helps also is we give a discount to students [and] again, that goes back to the fan experience,” he said. “So, students really make the fan experience awesome. The more students that go to an event, the more fun we have.”

Martinez said they’re looking at ways to verify students who display their ID card are current UTRGV students, but at the moment are “taking it on the honor system.”

He believes the student discount is something the concession stands will do permanently.

“Our drinks have improved as well,” Goldberg said. “It used to be, we only had bottled drinks available, and now we have added fountain. We have eight different varieties of drinks available at the fountain now. What that does is guarantee that all the drinks are going to be cold, and you don’t have to worry about that, and you don’t have all this single-use plastic floating around either. So, we think that it’s better for everybody involved.”

Although trading the previously available bottle to a 20-ounce cup, the price for drinks will remain at $3, Martinez said. The concession stands offer Coke, Diet Coke, Powerade, Dr Pepper and Sprite as fountain drinks and bottled water, so far.

He said the No. 1 item contributing to the average revenue of  $1,000 to $1,500 per game was drink sales. 

“We expect sales to go up this year because we have more variety and I think, so far, the numbers show that we’re trending upward, but we’ve really been doing this for about a week now, so it’s early,” Martinez said. “But, so far, the response has been positive.”

He said he is working on having hamburgers cooked on-site and french fries available at every baseball home game.

“We think it’s important to give students the best possible experience,” Goldberg said. “We certainly want to have students coming out to our games and in return we want to give them a great experience. It’s a big thing for us.”