Beer, sports, and the boob tube
By Noah Davis • Nov 20th, 2008 • Category: Uncategorized
By David Sweet
When Kansas knocked off Memphis in overtime this past April to snare its first NCAA men’s basketball title in a generation, fans across the land were entranced by the action on their television sets. But another group, watching the CBS broadcast from a different perspective, was aghast.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) didn’t care about the 75-68 final score — but it was stunned by the amount of time handed over to beer commercials. By its estimates, about 4 1/2 minutes of advertisements for beers such as Bud Light and Miller Lite filled the screen. According to the Washington, D.C.-based group — and a growing constituency that includes college coaches such as Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden along with a number of U.S. Congressmen — that is 4 and a half minutes too many.
This year, college presidents, athletic directors, and others sent a letter to NCAA president Myles Brand, demanding that the ruling body of college sports reconsider its policy regarding alcohol advertising during college basketball broadcasts. Back in the spring, Tom Osborne — University of Nebraska athletic director and former U.S. Congressman — asked Brand to consider a ban on alcohol advertising on television for all college sports. The NCAA, in fact, forbids alcohol advertising — except for beverages whose alcohol content is six percent or less. While foreign stouts may fail that test, U.S. lagers do not.
Why the effort to halt such ads? According to the CSPI’s Campaign for Alcohol-Free Sports TV, alcohol advertisements encourage young people to drink when they may not be legally able to do so, and beer ads undermine the mission of colleges and the NCAA.
Some wonder whether a ban would really have an impact.
“Is eliminating beer advertising on national broadcasts going to truly improve the behavior on campus of college students? It’s highly unlikely,” says Shawn McBride, vice president of Ketchum Sports Network, a sports marketing expert who worked in a Division I athletic department earlier in his career. “But the NCAA still has to battle the perception that it’s complicit in promoting this campus lifestyle (excessive drinking).”
The NCAA also needs to make sure it doesn’t bite the hand that feeds it. For the 65-team college basketball tournament known as March Madness, the NCAA is in the midst of an 11-year deal with CBS that pays $6 billion. To tell a TV partner after it has committed such an expenditure that it can no longer accept money from Anheuser-Busch or MillerCoors would severely impact the value of those rights and would hurt the NCAA during the next negotiations.
How much money do the networks derive from beer commercials during college sports telecasts? According to TNS Media Intelligence, during the last full school year, $82 million was spent by beer companies on broadcast and national cable networks, second only to automobile advertising. The lion’s share of that money was dedicated to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and the BCS football bowl games. As well, Division I universities rake in millions of dollars in sponsorship money from beer companies annually.
This summer, the NCAA’s executive committee addressed the issue of beer ads but made no changes. Committee chairman Michael Adams told the Associated Press, “I think we’ve taken a very sensible, very rationale, very conservative approach and we’ve asked that any company that advertises [alcohol] during our games continue to include the message ‘drink responsibly’ on its ads.”
What happens now? The chances of the NCAA banning Budweiser, Miller and others from the airwaves is doubtful — they’re about as likely as Harvard facing Yale in the Final Four.
David Sweet writes DRAFTMag.com’s Sports on Tap blog.
