On February 6th an estimated 130 million Americans will tune their televisions into the most prominent sporting event in the United States: the Super Bowl. In the breaks between the game pitting the Pittsburgh Steelers against the Seattle Seahawks, these viewers will keep their eyes glued on the TV tube to watch the entertaining commercials produced by numerous companies, including many by two beer companies which sponsor the National Football League, Bud Light and Budweiser.

Up until 2003 NASCAR, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, had a similar relationship with R.J. Reynolds, a producer of a similar product, cigarettes. During its 30-year sponsorship of the visible sport R.J. Reynolds succeeded in marketing its Winston Cigarettes to millions of NASCAR fans, including millions under the age of 18, the legal smoking age. In 1996 alone the American Lung Association estimated that 70.7 million children under the age of 17 watched motor sports races.1

The effect? Sixty percent of Winston cigarette smokers began smoking before they turned 14, and ninety percent became addicted to cigarettes by the time they turned 19.2 Although NASCAR hardly took the blame for all the teens becoming addicted to cigarettes, it did remain R.J. Reynolds’s most visible marketing tool to teenage audiences. In 2002 a reported twenty percent of all NASCAR fans smoked Winston Cigarettes.3

By that time the medical side effects of smoking had already become well documented, and NASCAR began facing serious pressure for its association with cigarettes. In 2001 attorney generals from four states sued R. J. Reynolds for their sponsorship of NASCAR, saying that it violated the Marketing and Advertising Restrictions outlined in the 1998 Tobacco Settlement. Severely handcuffed in their ability to continue using advertising through NASCAR, in 2003 R.J. Reynolds and NASCAR agreed to end their advertising relationship, ending the association of cigarettes with the motor sport industry.

Currently, the NFL faces a similar, albeit marginally different, situation with the association of alcohol with to the game of football game. As corporate sponsors of 28 NFL teams4 Bud Light and Budweiser have a strong presence in professional football, a sport viewed by millions of individuals under the age of 21, the legal drinking age in the United States. Through the amusing television ads at the Super Bowl and NFL games throughout the year Bud Light and Budweiser create a lighthearted impression of alcohol on their viewing audience, including upon those too young to drink.

There exists thorough documentation of the problems associated with alcohol. In 2004 16,694 individuals in the United States died from alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes.5 Drinking contributes to numerous other problems alienating society, including “spousal and child abuse, rape cases, teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases.”6

Joseph A. Califano, Jr., of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University points out that, “A child who reaches age 21 without smoking, abusing alcohol, or using drugs is virtually certain never to do so.”7 Clearly, NFL’s sponsorship by Bud Light and Budweiser plays a considerable role in influencing the perception of drinking by those under the age of 21. The NFL should take a page out of NASCAR’s playbook and seriously scrutinize its relationship with the alcohol industry.

1 - http://www.lungsandiego.org/tobacco/press_rjreynolds.asp
2 - http://www.anti-smoking.org/theproblem.htm
3 - http://triad.bizjournals.com/triad/stories/2000/05/01/story2.html
4 - http://www.anheuser-busch.com/news/BudNFLSponsor_042105.htm
5 - http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/drving.htm
6 - http://www.svsu.edu/clubs/vanguard/stories/108
7 - http://www.focusas.com/Alcohol.html