After pushing the end of beer sales to the end of the eighth inning, the Brewers have decided to revert back to capping beer sales after seven innings moving forward, a team spokesman told JR Radcliffe of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
American Family Field initially allowed beer for an extra inning as a way to work around MLB’s new pitch clock rules, which have shortened games considerably. The move was meant to combat potential revenue losses created by the quicker pace of play.
The decision to revert back to having last call in the seventh inning is not because of any specific incident. Teams usually cut fans off at that point to prevent any potential issues caused by more drinking, but Brewers senior vice president for communications Tyler Barnes said that there have not been more incidents since the previous change.
“What we have experienced is that the sale of all concessions drops off precipitously in the later innings, and with the faster game times, the extra 15 to 20 minutes of sales has been materially insignificant,” Barnes said, via the Journal Sentinel.
Milwaukee was not the only team to push last call back an inning, as the Diamondbacks, Rangers and Twins also made the change this year.