Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland wasn’t quite packed to the gills with fans eager to watch Northwestern take on Nebraska to kick off this year’s college football stadium. Its concourses, however, were.
That’s because a problem with the stadium’s internet made all the concessions inside entirely free of charge. Yes, even beer and cocktails.
Somewhere in between the Cornhuskers’ first and second touchdowns of the 2022 season, an internet outage affected the stadium’s billing system. This meant that while Casey Thompson was dealing on the field for Nebraska, overworked concessions workers were dealing out beers and liquor completely gratis for the throngs filling up the space underneath the stands.
The queue for alcohol at Aviva Stadium right now because everything is free due to the internet being down. pic.twitter.com/JWS4IxyfxR
— Amie Just (@Amie_Just) August 27, 2022
Instead of suspending all sales, the folks behind the counter decided to make everything free, allowing fans to double-fist pints on their way back to the seats. That made a tap list that started at roughly $7.64 USD for a pint of Guinness a tremendous bargain.
Prices at Aviva Stadium for Nebraska – Northwestern in Dublin @KETV pic.twitter.com/uMviiX0ch8
— Andy Kendeigh (@AKendeighKETV) August 27, 2022
At least, as long as you were willing to miss most of the second quarter queued up (warning, language in the tweet below is NSFW).
I’ve no idea how the Aviva Stadium fucked this one up but… here’s the beer queue pic.twitter.com/9v4ul10mgE
— Liz Bhandari | Sports Writer & Podcast Host (@NFLGirlUK) August 27, 2022
Nebraska and Northwestern had already over-delivered on the field, producing 24 points in the first 20 minutes of play. Aviva Stadium followed suit, even if it was the outcome of bad WiFi.
Update: 3.15 p.m. ET: Fans are enjoying the beer!
Free beer in Ireland going well. pic.twitter.com/PWYP89GYiO
— Paige Dimakos (@The_SportsPaige) August 27, 2022
Update: 3:30 p.m. ET: The internet remains down. The beer is gone. Generous pours remain. This is gonna be an amazing fourth quarter, no matter what happens.
Our guy @ndblair reports that they’ve run out of beer in Ireland. This feels like the part where it gets worse. pic.twitter.com/ewHZa3eOMQ
— Charles Robinson (@CharlesRobinson) August 27, 2022
