FREE ESSAY ON ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO IN SPORTS

ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO IN SPORTS

With sports becoming more and more commercialized, sponsorships have taken over
professional sports. In this paper, Alcohol and Tobacco sponsorships will be the issue of
this paper. Sports sponsorship has become an important marketing tool for advertiser's
because of the flexibility, broad reach, and high level of brand or corporate exposure
that it affords, (Krapp, 49). Yet some sponsors have created an uproar with in the
society, these are namely alcohol and tobacco products. These two make up about half of
the sponsorship in professional sports today. Sports sponsorship has been around since
the creation of professional sport in the late nineteenth century. It is not a new topic,
but it has become some what of a controversial issue in the past twenty years. With
Tobacco companies being under strong scrutiny from the government and society, their
sponsorship of sporting events have also been questioned about their effect on the youth
of America. 
Sponsorships are useful as a supplement to regular advertising; however, they are
especially valuable as an advertising substitute in situations where advertising may be
banned or limited. Sports sponsorship provides opportunities to reach audiences in four
distinct ways: (1)during the prepromotion advertising and publicity for the event, (2)at
the event site during the event itself, (3)during the live or delayed broadcast of the
event, and (4)during postevent news reporting of the event's results. Each time the
sporting event is mentioned or shown in the media, there is an opportunity for the event
sponsor to gain exposure, (Krapp, 50). Alcohol and Tobacco companies take great advantage
of this. They sponsor sporting events or pay to have their advertisements in certain
sports arenas and stadiums for just this reason. Multiple chances to have their brand or
corporate name shown on television or by the people attending the sporting event. Yet by
having these advertisements in the arenas or stadiums, the alcohol or tobacco company
does not have to put up warnings with their advertisement like they have to do on their
products and advertisements in publications. Significant brand exposure may be gained
through event publicity, prepromotion, on-site signage, and telecast of the event, but
unlike conventional advertising, there is no requirement for including health warnings or
moderation messages, (Locke, 224). 
Several beer companies are heavily involved in sport sponsorship, actually owning or
sponsoring Major League Baseball teams. For example, Anheuser-Busch owns the St. Louis
Cardinals, Coors has an ownership position with the Colorado Rockies, and Canadian brewer
Labatt owns the Toronto Blue Jays. In 1990, Gloede reported that Anheuser-Busch sponsored
23 of 24 domestic Major League Baseball teams, 18 of 24 National Football League teams,
22 of 27 National Basketball Association teams, and 13 of 14 domestic National Hockey
League teams. Also with such major international events such as the 1998 World Cup of
Soccer in France and recently with the sponsorship of the Woman's National Basketball
Association through Bud Light, (Krapp, 51). This is a incredible statistic, in that, beer
companies sponsor more than half of all professional sports teams in America. A company
that brews alcohol sponsors the majority of sports in this country when alcohol has
nothing to do with the playing or participating in any of those sports. 
Alcohol sponsorship is looked at in a better light than tobacco sponsorship, which is the
more controversial topic. For both of them, sports media is a key vehicle for presenting
and promoting their products in connection with activities defined by most people as
healthy. This enables them to present product images that they hope will counteract other
negatives in the culture, (Coakley, 381). This is why you will see more alcohol
advertisements than sports drink advertisements. The alcohol and tobacco companies want
to be incorporated with sports since they are considered good for a person, and they are
not great for a person. It makes them good by association with the sports that they
sponsor. 
Cigarette ads were banned from television in the United States in 1971 and in many other
countries including Canada and Australia. A key benefit of sports sponsorship is that it
provides a legal loophole for circumventing the ad ban, (Krapp, 51). Tobacco products
have also been sponsors of sporting event's for more than a century. With brands of
chewing tobacco sponsoring the majority of baseball teams and making baseball cards with
their brand name on the card since professional baseball sprung up in America. Tobacco
companies have recently taken a lot of fire on their advertising to the youth of America.
A study in Australia found that the brands that were most popular with children, aged 12
to 14, are the same brands that sponsor the state's major league football
competition,(Krapp, 52). 
My opinion on this topic is that the money that both alcohol and tobacco advertising
pulls in for each of the professional sports is good for those sports. On the other hand,
is that money worth the corruption of the youth of America by the constant bombardment of
alcohol and tobacco advertising at the ballpark. The signage should be limited or
discrete at the arena or stadium, if any. With society's bias towards tobacco companies
in general, I would not be against the all out ban of tobacco advertising at sporting
events or stadiums. They have no place at sporting events where health and fitness are
the keys to success, not what kind of cigarette you smoke.