Pens Game. Think about this

I took my 4-year old boy the Pens game last night. The Pens lost and Sidney Crosby was injured - he suffered a high ankle sprain that will keep him out for 5-6 weeks.

Oh... and I had a beer at the game. $7 for a Labatt Blue Lite. Who the heck drinks LaBatt Blue Lite.

Location: Mellon Arena
Event: Pittsburgh Penguins Game
Amount Spent on Alcohol: $7.00
Tax Spent: $0.70
2008 Cumulative Drink Tax: $10.41
PAT Usage: 0

This whole thing got me to thinking. If I spend $7 on a beer at a Pens game... how much tax is generated at sporting events in the city. Let's assume that every person at the Pens game had one beer (now, I know that some people won't drink, but there are a lot of people who have 2-4 beers during the course of a game... so lets average that out to one beer per person). That's 17,500 beers x $7.00 = $122,500 in alcohol sales. And 10% is equal to $12,500 in taxes collected from that one event. Multiply that over the 41 home games at Mellon Arena and you come to $512,500 in tax revenue earned from JUST PENGUIN GAMES. And that's not counting playoffs.

Steelers - same rule applies: 70,000 beers consumed during a game x $7 each x 8 home games = $392,000. NOTE: I think there is a lot more drinking at Steeler games - but we'll leave it at that. Pirates - 25,000 is the average attendance and if each person had a beer x $7 apiece x 82 home games = $1,435,000. Drinking might be lighter at Pirate games - but lets hold true to form just for arguments sake.

OK- if you add it all up - $2,339,500 in tax revenue from just local professional sporting events. Wasn't the original gap in PAT funding about $2mm? If so, why couldn't they just tax something like drinks at sporting events. Wouldn't that pay for the gap. Maybe I'm wrong about the $2mm figure... but a tax on all alcohol poured in the county seems like overkill to me.

But who am I... just a poor sap paying for a pour tax.