Will Beer Prices Hit $9 at Ivor Wynne This Year?

I was going back over some old posts and I noticed that for 2010 apparently beer prices were $8.50 for a tall boy. Or at least that's what the post said. Last year tall boy prices were $8.75, which is a good number for getting a possible $1.25 tip is a fan is feeling generous.

Given that inflation is probably running somewhere in between 2% and 4%, there's a good chance tall boy prices could be $9 in 2012. Tabernac! Which probably isn't great for the beer servers' tips, although the move to $9.25 will probably really suck.

How much money to the Cats make off of beer sales anyways? I've wondered about that question before and I've concluded it is a decent amount. I'll assume the Cats pay $3 per tall boy for the beer, taxes and serving. Last year's average attendance was 23676 fans per game. Assuming each fan buys one tall boy (most kids excepted and those fans we all know and love making up their share) and that the pre-season game has the same attendance as the average (actually this year with free tickets for season ticker holders it was way higher, no doubt as part of a strategy of higher beer and merchandise sales), and $5.75 profit per beer, that works out to profit of $1.42 million. I'm guessing that Carling probably pays sponsorship that works out to roughly the raw cost of the beer for the right to sell the beer and advertising so the Cats make even more money off it. Of course this could be way off, but I'm doubting the Cats are going to release this info.

I should get around to doing a blog post comparing beer prices around the league. That would be interesting, although probably a little depressing too.