Alcohol and Sports - An Unhealthy Mix

If we believed everything we see, alcohol—particularly beer—might seem essential to sports. But the apparent fusion of sports and alcohol is primarily an invention of the alcohol industry. Alcohol producers spent $991 million on television advertising in 2002—60 percent of it on sports programming.¹ Alcohol companies use sports to reach adolescents and younger adult sports fans, ensuring strong brand recognition from an early age.

	Diageo's Crown Royal IROC Car Photo: Advertising Age, 2004

Take Diageo, who has a deal with the Washington Redskins football team to promote its Smirnoff Ice and Captain Morgan's Gold products in the Redskins' stadium and on television during Redskins' broadcasts. After having a sponsorship bid rejected by NASCAR, Diageo signed a multiyear agreement in January 2004 to make its Crown Royal brand the official sponsor of the International Race of Champions . This was the first time a major motor sports event signed a hard liquor marketer to a title sponsorship. Following this precedent, NASCAR reversed its policy in November 2004 and announced that its longstanding ban on hard-liquor advertising would be lifted the next season. Liquor companies entering NASCAR must follow the Distilled Spirits Council's advertising code, however much of the irresponsibility lies in the fact that the sport is accepting advertisements for liquor. Young males, who make up the majority of drunk drivers, are a huge market for NASCAR, and plenty of underage fans will naturally associate alcohol with life in the fast lane, much as films like "Fast and the Furious" glamorized this dangerous connection.

In many of the places where sports and alcohol merge—whether at stadiums, sports bars, or at home—the combination often leads to heavy drinking and related problems like violence and vandalism, DUIs and public disturbances. Alcohol abuse costs each man, woman, and child in the United States about $683 each year; and for sports fans who drink heavily the cost is even greater.²

According to the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study of 2002, heavy drinking and sports go hand in hand. Of more than 14,000 college students at 119 four-year colleges, researchers found that 53 percent of sports fans usually binge when they drink, compared with only 41 percent of male and 37 percent of female nonfans.³

Sports stadiums present one of the most problematic drinking environments. Although policies designed to prevent alcohol problems often exist on paper, sports venues aren’t always following the game plan. For instance, the National Football League’s (NFL) official policies limit the number of beers served at one time to each patron and require alcohol sales to end by the fourth quarter. Yet an investigative report on CBS’s Inside Edition showed stadium beer vendors frequently selling more than the maximum number of beers to fans.⁴ Alcohol also flows freely at the tailgate parties that many sports venues permit before, during, and after games.

The risks created when sports venues fail to implement basic elements of responsible beverage service policies can be compounded by insufficient police enforcement. The same Inside Edition report found only five of the 51 police departments with an NFL stadium in its jurisdiction deploy, additional DUI enforcement on game days. Only one of these same police departments had conducted sobriety checkpoints in conjunction with games, but one-third admitted they have a problem with football fans driving under the influence.⁵

When it comes to mixing alcohol and sports, the NFL is not alone. The National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, and the National Hockey League all have intimate relationships with alcohol producers. Coors Field is home to the Colorado Rockies baseball team, and ARCO Arena in Sacramento, California—home of the NBA Kings—has a scoreboard covered in Budweiser advertisements. Countless other sports venues that feature alcohol ads on walls, scoreboards, and banners are home to not only professional athletes, but may also host high school and college team events.

In an attempt to break the link between alcohol and college sports, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) organized a campaign to ban alcohol ads during televised college games. CSPI is calling on colleges and universities, athletic directors, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to stop taking money from alcohol advertisers.

“College officials say they want to deter underage and binge drinking and stop riots that disrupt campus communities and blot schools’ reputations,” said George Hacker, director of CSPI’s alcohol policies project. “But too often, they’re complicit with beer marketers on pitching beer to their students and young fans. That totally undercuts their responsibilities to the health and safety of their students.”

The campaign signed on former University of North Carolina head basketball coach Dean Smith and former University of Nebraska head football coach (and current U.S. Representative) Tom Osborne (R-NE) and plans to seek the support of the approximately 1,200 schools in the NCAA requesting their endorsement.

¹The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth: Alcohol Advertising on Sports Television 2001 and 2002
²George Washington University Medical Center
³ The Harvard School of Public Health: College Sports Fans Binge Drink More Than Non-Fan Students, 2002
⁴ Inside Edition: NFL Communities at Risk from Game Day Boozing, 2003
⁵ ibid.