Alcohol Brands Sponsoring Sports
The process of promoting sports competitions, tournaments, and other sports activities is often accompanied with advertising alcohol brands. There are numerous instances of alcohol trade names sponsoring sports. Thus, for example, according to IEG Research (2010), 53% of sponsorship deals signed by tequila brands in the USA refer to sports. And it has several considerable disadvantages which influence society, communities, funs, and even sportsmen.Sports events supported by alcohol brands are usually criticized by health organizations. They claim that people who watch such events can be easily influenced by propaganda of alcohol drinks.
Furthermore, several health leaders in the United Kingdom are calling for banning alcohol sponsorship in sports because of the fear of fuelling underage drinking (Saul, 2014). Medical authorities, public health representatives, and health charities emphasize that children are attracted by sports events, and these events are often dominated by alcohol advertising campaigns, which creates associations between an alcohol brand and sport. For instance, tequila marketers are partners of a large number of sports teams, events, motorsports properties and so on. Thus, “Familia Camarena Tequila” is a sponsor of the NBA Phoenix Suns, NFL Miami Dolphins and MLB Atlanta Braves and Chicago White Sox (The Dark Agency, 2010). Four famous teams are sponsored by the alcohol brand.
Furthermore, there have already been several partnerships the brand signed earlier with MLS club Chivas USA and the MLB Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and San Francisco Giants. As a result, the supporters of these clubs, including children, look at the jerseys and unconsciously want to taste the product, which eventually leads to underage drinking. And there are numerous sports clubs in the USA that are currently sponsored by alcohol brands with direct and indirect influence on children’s and teenagers’ drinking habits.More than that, alcohol brands supporting sports clubs and sports events often cause alcohol consumption among sportspeople. Thus, according to a group of researchers (O’Brien, Brown, Garnes, and Carr, 2015), there are many studies that prove the connection between alcohol brands sponsoring sports and sportsmen’s drinking behavior. Sportsmen from UK universities participated in one of such studies. It was found that sportspeople sponsored by alcohol companies were four times more likely to have bad drinking habits than sportsmen without alcohol brands’ sponsorship.
Apart from this, similar studies were conducted in Australia and New Zealand. The results also showed that bad drinking habits were more typical of athletes receiving alcohol companies’ sponsorships in comparison to non-sponsored sportsmen. Although instances of direct advertising of alcohol products by sportspeople can be hardly found, there are cases when athletes consume alcohol without taking into account its harmful effects. Alcohol has negative influence on muscle development, aerobic activity, motor function, and may have long-term effects on a sportsman’s body.One more disadvantage of alcohol brands sponsoring sports is that when a sporting event is linked to alcohol, the atmosphere of this event includes an alcohol brand as one of its major constituent parts. Participants, fans, and viewers cannot imagine this event or a sports team …
