Nothing says “you might be a Floridian if..” you like a place to drink by the pool while watching football. It’s kind of “what we do” down here to be honest. We like to do both often–and if possible–we prefer to GO to stadiums in our board-shorts and take that duality to an entirely different level. Virtually every stadium on the peninsula is trying to incorporate some sort of “salt life” into their gameday experience nowadays, and with good reason– because it’s fun.

If you live in Jacksonville, you can literally drive your boat up to the tailgating spot and then head straight to the pool to watch a Jaguars game. In Tallahassee, they’re completely remodeling the south end zone to resemble Margaritaville. Raymond James has a pirate ship on the north end, and countless palm trees blowing in the sometimes-breeze that infiltrates on the south end.

The list goes on and on–the Dolphins opened up Sun Life to have a more open-air feel to it. University of West Florida’s football stadium is actually the Blue Wahoos Baseball Stadium that’s on some of the prettiest piece of land along the entire Gulf of Mexico in Pensacola. FAU’s press box offers insanely distracting views of the ocean in Boca Raton. You get the point.

The school–keyword: school–that’s pioneering the changes that the professional stadiums have made is the University of Central Florida. Bright House Networks Stadium aka “The BounceHouse” opened up in 2007 and some thought it was beyond a terrible idea. The campus itself is closer to Oviedo than it is Orlando–columnists and constituents in the area lambasted school officials for trying to “steal” the thunder of the Citrus Bowl. But yet they built it–and yet they came. Now both stadiums are thriving in the land of Mickey Mouse.

Now, the stadium serves as one of the shining examples of how to get things done down here if you want to keep your kids on campus at all times–and keep the alumni coming back to campus at all times as well. Last season, the Knights went 0-12 and saw the departure of Head Coach George O’Leary, but when all else fails, put on your filp-flops and head to the cabanas. The Knights may have taken some seats out of the place to “downsize” to 44,206 from 45,000+, but the addition of the Carl Black and Gold Cabanas has been a lesson in “how to upgrade your fan experience” even if the product on the field isn’t experiencing anything but pain and suffering.

Cleverly named because Carl Black is the name of one of the major car dealerships in the Orlando Metro area and a play on the Knight’s school colors, the club was a new addition in 2015 and is situated in the stadium so that it feels like you’ve walked into a tiki bar that just-so-happens to have a football game being played at the same time. Who doesn’t want that? The ability to move around–especially if you’ve got little ones in-tow–is almost as big a luxury as the atmosphere itself.

The message is clear with our professional and college teams in terms of consuming the product at the stadium–if we stink, at least let us be Floridians and go back to what it is we wanted to do in the first place–have a cocktail by the beach and watch our football. That message was received loud and clear by the administrators, boosters and business partners at UCF. These sorts of upgrades to facilities certainly play into the decision-making process of a teenager and their family more than we realize and it will be very interesting to watch how new HC Scott Frost uses the stadium and all of the other bells-and-whistles on campus to keep their offseason momentum going.