On Saturday, January 18, an announced crowd of 17,881 packed themselves into Fiserv Forum in downtown Milwaukee in order to watch #7 ranked Marquette host Xavier in a Big East battle. The game had already been announced as sold out back on January 13, and having nothing else going on Saturday morning, I decided to test out something I was pretty sure was true.
See, I’m a Marquette season ticket holder going all the way back to the 2001-02 season. I can easily say that Fiserv Forum’s amenities surpass those available at the Bradley Center back in the day. That’s not up for debate. But, I’ve noticed that sometimes not quite every concession stand is open for Marquette games. I’ve talked to friends and known associates that sit in places in the building other than my season tickets and they’ve told me the same thing.
Since I had the free time to get to the arena not long after the doors opened on Saturday and I was going to have my trusty Four Factors notebook and my iPhone with me anyway, I decided to document exactly what was and was not open on Saturday for the Xavier game. After all, it was announced as a sell out, right? Lots of notice to Fiserv that there will be 17,000+ people in attendance, lots of chances for the Milwaukee Bucks — the official operators of the building — and Levy Restaurants — the official concessions operator at Fiserv — to get their ducks in a row and maximize the potential sales available, right? After all, Marquette hasn’t had a game at Fiserv so far this season with less than 14,000 people as the announced crowd in the building. No reason to even plan to shortarm the thing in the first place, but you’d think that you want to really take advantage of having a sellout crowd coming to see the #7 team in the country riding a six game winning streak, right?…