The name on the building won't change, but the concessions for sale inside will.

University of Colorado athletic department officials said Monday that beer will no longer be sold at the Coors Events Center for CU men's and women's basketball games. The decision comes 11 years after CU banned beer sales at Folsom Field for football games.

The beer ban at Folsom Field was originally instituted for a two-year trial period in 1996 and was then made permanent.

"We will be implementing the same policy that we have at Folsom Field," CU athletic director Mike Bohn said Monday. "We won't be offering beer for sale to the general public."

However, beer will still be available at basketball games for private groups. Beer is still sold at Folsom Field in the private suites and club seating areas.

"It was Mike Bohn's decision, and Chancellor (Bud) Peterson was fully supportive of it," CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard said of the new ban. "We think this is in the best interest of our total fan experience."

Colorado has long been the only school in the Big 12 Conference that sold beer to the general public at basketball games, and there are no schools in the conference that sell beer at football games.

Two years ago, the Big 12 also halted alcohol sales at all of its championship events, and the NCAA has had a long-standing policy of not selling alcohol at its championship events.

In Fort Collins, Colorado State does sell beer at football games at Hughes Stadium, but it stops sales at halftime. Beer is not sold at CSU's basketball facility, Moby Arena.

The sale of beer at college venues across the nation is dwindling. A USA Today study two years ago found that less than half of the 119 Division I schools in the nation still sell beer at one or more of their athletic venues. Schools that have recently banned sales at home football games include Southern Cal and Maryland, with Maryland recently banning alcohol in all of its athletic venues.

CU police Cmdr. Brad Wiesley said alcohol-related issues at Folsom Field have dropped "significantly" since the halt of beer sales in 1996.

"We haven't totally gotten rid of the alcohol issues, but they've definitely been reduced," Wiesley said.

Wiesley also said while the number of alcohol-related problems at basketball games is far less than at football games, "This definitely could impact that positively."

Bohn said the decision shouldn't come as a surprise to those who follow trends in college athletics.

"It's certainly becoming the norm across the country," Bohn said.

Season-ticket holder Doug Looney was only surprised by how long it took CU to follow suit.

"I think it makes abundant sense," he said. "The sad thing is that it took so long to come to that decision. Just simply for the sake of appearance and all the trouble with college kids and beer, it's a wonderful idea."

CU alumnus and basketball fan Larry Quilling is lukewarm about whether beer should be served at basketball games. He's mostly concerned that it will be sold to some patrons and not others.

"I hate to see it go to two classes of serving," he said. "I think it's wrong and inappropriate; it turns into somewhat of a caste system."

University officials say they do not believe that the Coors family — who gave a $5 million gift to the events center in 1990 — will be upset by the beer ban.

"We want to stress that Coors has been a great partner with our university, and we're very proud to collaborate with them on a number of things," Bohn said. "They have been a very generous sponsor, and we believe our partnership will continue."

Camera Staff Writer Laura Snider contributed to this report.