ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, November 10, 1996 TAG: 9611110080
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-20 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: MARK CLOTHIER STAFF WRITER
Nothing gets a crowd going like guys wearing pumpkins.
At least that's what James Mentz, his brother Karl and friend Jason Minton were banking on.
The trio was standing just inside the gate at Lane Stadium before Virginia Tech's game with the Pitt Panthers, fitting their edible helmets on their undergraduate heads before writing "VT" on the side of each autumn fruit.
Total outlay for their gameday setup: $11: three $2 pumpkins from Harris Teeter and $5 worth of face paint and lipstick, left over from last year.
Fan outlay for a home football game at Virginia Tech runs the gamut - from modest payouts like those of the pumpkin-headed brothers Mentz and company to larger bucks spent by the fiftysomething crowd for everything from hotel rooms to Hokie souvenirs.
On this particular weekend, close to $700,000 was generated by Tech alone, including $532,000 in gross ticket sales and some $157,000 in fast food and Hokie duds at Tech-related outlets.
Factor in the increased income Montgomery County hotels, restaurants and stores see when the Hokies play at home and it adds up to well over $1 million injected into the New River Valley economy for a typical home-game weekend, according to local business leaders.
Each year, Tom Hockycko, 50, and three friends pick one game for a reunion. This year's was the Pitt game, Oct. 26.
Chuck Terry, 51, came in from Nashville, Tenn., Tom Hidell, 51, from Stone Mountain, Ga. Al Boxley had the shortest trip, coming from Cumberland, Md.
Including their spouses, they estimated they would spend $1,600 as a group.
That included rooms at the Comfort Inn in Christiansburg and dinner at The Farmhouse, where their parents used to take them when they were students.
It also included the bags of souvenirs each was holding as they stood underneath the stands in Lane Stadium.
"I try not to spend anything," Hockycko joked. "I mooch off the other guys."
Income-wise, the Pitt game was actually slower than usual for Virginia Tech.
Even so, stadium-goers ate their way through $63,000 of tacos, pizzas, hot dogs, hamburgers, peanuts, popcorn and soft drinks.
Which means, either every Hokie in attendance spent $1.44 on junk food, or a handful of them really tied it on.
Clothing sales at Lane Stadium and other Tech-owned shops brought in about $93,000 that Saturday - about $13,000 of it in rain ponchos. Don Williams, who oversees Lane Stadium's concessions as executive director of Virginia Tech Services, said the stadium souvenir shops sold about 2,000 of the $6.95 item.
After last year's rain-plagued football season, Williams said he learned to keep a few thousand in stock.
Either before or after the game, fans need to fill up their cars. That's where Steve McMurray comes in.
McMurray owns and operates two Exxon stations - one on Blacksburg's North Main Street and one in Christiansburg, near the Marketplace shopping center.
His stations' sales go up 10 percent to 15 percent with a football game - and up to 20 percent when the opponent's a good one. He sees a bump whenever Tech has a function. For example, his North Main location sold out of cigarettes during Parent's Weekend Oct.19.
Fans also need food.
Mike Alleruzzo is the general manager of Pargo's in Christiansburg. "It's just outstanding when there's a home football game," he said, as he sees his revenues jump about 20 percent.
The Saturday lunch crowd stays about the same, but Saturday night business goes up about 25 percent. Sunday brunch crowds are usually double the norm.
"We add on staff during fall weekends because we know what's coming. It's pretty much a guarantee. We count on it in our projections that we send to our corporate offices," Alleruzzo said.
Montgomery County counts on the income as well. Its sales-tax receipts go up with every Hokie souvenir sold or every dollar spent in local stores during a fan's weekend visit.
Blacksburg and Christiansburg also have a prepared meals tax and a hotel room occupancy tax - both 4 percent.
In Blacksburg, the room tax generated about $165,000 in the fiscal year that ended June 30, Town Manager Ron Secrist said. The prepared meal tax accounted for $1.09 million. These revenues went into the town's $10.5 million general fund from that year. The general fund helps pay for the beefed-up police presence required on game days as well as parking enforcement and litter control, Secrist said.
"You can count on hotels, motels - all lodging places - to be full when there's a Tech home game," he said.
In Christiansburg, for the fiscal year that ended June 30, the hotel occupancy tax generated $185,234. The prepared meals tax brought in $1.59 million of the town's $9.7 million general fund, said Town Manager Lance Terpenny.
As president of the Blacksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce and owner of a travel agency, Patti Cowley sees the impact of Tech games in two ways.
"Any event that adds 20,000 to 40,000 to the area's population has an impact on business," she said. "As a travel agent, I have people call me weeks before a game to find rooms. I've had to look as far away as Botetourt County. Even beds and breakfasts in Floyd and Giles counties are filled."
LENGTH: Long : 112 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Lora Gordon. 1. Carolyn Larson (right) laughs as she andby CNBher mother, Deborah Larson, discuss buying a sweatshirt at the
University Bookstore's shop in Lane Stadium during a recent Virginia
Tech football game. 2. A group (above) of diehard football fans
crowds the refreshment stand during the third quarter of a Virginia
Tech football game. 3. Sean O'Reilly (right) rakes out the popcorn
for hungry football fans. O'Reilly is among a large number of area
youth who work in Lane Stadium making and serving the refreshments
at the home games. 4. Justin Taylor tries to interest football fans
in a program before the Virginia Tech-Pittsburgh game. 5. Tech sold
$13,000 worth of ponchos for the Pitt game on Oct. 26 (ran on
NRV-1). color. Graphic: Chart by staff: A weekend in the life of a
fan's wallet. color. 2. Robert Lunsford. Game Day statistics. KEYWORDS: MGR