New research suggests that the various types of marketing that appear on television, billboards, etc. during sports games are more likely to influence the way youths behave then the actual behavior of athletes. The large amount of alcohol advertising that takes place at sporting events and on television is encouraging youth to drink. It appears stories of athletes wild nights out, on the other hand, don’t affect teenagers’ decisions to drink at any significant level.
According to Dr. Kerry O’Brien, one of the report’s co-authors, alcohol companies spend about 80% of their advertising budget on athletics/sports. According to one source, the participants actually thought on average that athletes drank 12% less than they themselves did.
Dr. O’Brien says that “there is much stronger evidence for a relationship between alcohol-industry sponsorship, advertising and marketing within sport and hazardous drinking among young people than there is for the influence of sports stars drinking.”
“We are not suggesting that sports stars should not be encouraged to drink responsibly, but it’s disingenuous to place the blame on them for setting the bad example.”
The research for this study was done at three universities in both the United Kingdom and Australia and consisted of interviews with over 1,000 students. Professor Greg Kolt said that “there very much is a culture of drinking that’s associated with sport” and that sports organizations need to start thinking about if their relationship with alcohol companies is wise.
