When football fans hear the sound of the foghorn
announcing another Oregon touchdown, local business owners hear the sweet sound of profits.
During an average football Saturday, campus area bars report long lines and throngs of fans wanting to see the Ducks on TV. Tim Shipley, a bartender at Taylor’s Bar and Grille, said fans begin to line up at the bar a few hours before game time and don’t leave until late in the night.
“We are extremely busy during football games, especially when the game is later in the day,” he said.
That sentiment was echoed at other campus area bars. Local restaurants also feel the effects of football Saturdays.
The Hungry Duck, a restaurant and lounge near Autzen Stadium, is “very busy a couple hours before the game and a couple hours after the game,” said Marci Laursen, the general manager. “It gets pretty crazy.”
Eugene business leaders say the area restaurants, bars and hotels should not have been caught off guard. The hype — and success — of this year’s football team has brought more fans, and their dollars, to the Eugene area.
“The success of the team does help to bring in more visitors to the area,” said Lisa Lawton, director of community relations at the Convention and Visitors Association of Lane County. “We are a successful team, we have the rankings, and this generates more interest and tends to bring in more visitors.”
The football team has been an important money maker in the community for years, said Dave Hauser, president of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce.
“Oregon football is a pretty significant economic engine,” he said. “It would be difficult to imagine what it would be like if they were not here.”
Hauser said that with an average of six to eight home games per year, Oregon football is the biggest sporting event in town. Other sporting events, he said, such as the Prefontaine Classic, come close, “but not in the order of the magnitude of football.”
Last year, Duck fans set an Autzen Stadium attendance record with an average of 45,093 fans per game. At least 16,000 of those fans are out-of-town visitors, according to a study prepared by the Convention and Visitors Association of Lane County and the University Athletic Department.
“It’s like having a convention with 16,000 visitors, six to eight times a year,” Hauser said.
The study said each visiting fan spends an average of $145 per day, which works out to about $2.3 million a game. These dollars are spread out among restaurants, hotels and retail outlets.
“The typical visiting fan eats a lot of meals at restaurants, lots of stays in local hotels and lots of gas purchases,” Hauser said.
However, some establishments say the money brought in from games is not enough to offset the loss of revenue from the sluggish economy and the impact of Eugene’s smoking ban.
“As of late, (football Saturdays) are not bad, but they are not great, either,” said Deanna George, general manager of the Old Pad.
“I know these people, and we’re still having some hard times, and some of the people are not coming because they can’t smoke,” she said.
But the overall economic impact of football fans is still positive. Fans who stay the night in local hotels in the Eugene-Springfield area are subject to a 9.5 percent room tax, which spreads the money out even more.