The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville will outsource the management of game-day parking in the coming year, but those who attend sporting events on campus likely won’t notice a difference, an athletics official said.
“From the fan standpoint, their trip to the game should be similar to ones they’ve had in the past,” said Kevin Trainor, spokesman for UA athletics, on Friday.
On May 29, UA issued a notice that it was entering contract negotiations with Event Operations Group of Pelham, Ala., for third-party parking services. The company answered UA’s request for proposals in January and February, according to university documents.
On its website, Event Operations Group touts itself as a full-service event management, staffing and security company that can handle services such as parking. Other services it offers include ushers, tickets, transportation and guest services.
On Friday, Trainor said the contract has not been finalized.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with assigning where people park,” he said. “This is just the management of game day.”
In years past, the university has outsourced athletics-event enterprises such as concessions and ushers, but not parking, Trainor said. Until now, the athletic department - in conjunction with the Razorback Foundation - has handled the vetting, hiring, training, supervision and personnel paperwork associated with the parking attendants for game day.
According to the request for proposals, the athletic department’s “event management group” will supervise the third-party company. The request said the athletic events include football, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball and special events.
UA is seeking a one-year contract “with the option to renew annually for six additional renewal periods,” according to the request. It also calls for a “high level of professional, knowledgeable and customer-oriented game-day parking management, enforcement of game-day parking and tailgating policies” as well as “security within the parking lots.”
Parking lots used for athletic events include public lots and “Scholarship Parking” lots, the latter of which is used by Razorback Foundation donors according to their membership level in the foundation. The scope of the work will range from four to six parking lots during special events to 65 lots on football game days, according to the documents.
Since the contract is not yetsigned, it’s not clear whether an independent, external parking manager would continue hiring local groups and individuals to work parking on game days for fundraising or employment.
But Trainor said that, with the volume of positions needed to work the games, he anticipated the company would still need to hire local groups.
Michelle Yocum, a spokesman for a band-boosters group at Fayetteville High School, said she had not yet heard about the change.
“For our band program we handle all [UA] cash parking on the high school and Scholarship Parking at FHS, too,” Yocum said by e-mail Friday afternoon. “I do not believe these changes would affect our program because everything we do is on our own campus.”
The university is turning to an outside vendor because of rising attendance and the need to centralize and make more efficient the operations to handlethat volume, Trainor said.
“We host close to a million fans annually at all our events,” he said, adding that this includes not only UA athletic events but events it hosts, such as NCAA or SEC meets or games.
In UA baseball alone, for instance, the athletics department announced in January 2011 the program had finished second nationally in both total home attendance and average home attendance, “as a school-record of 292,734 fans filed through the Baum Stadium gates during the 2010 season.” The baseball team averaged 7,704 fans per game for the 38 games played that season.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 06/16/2013