Analysis of Committee Recommendations on Alcohol and Sport
Alternative sources of sponsorship?
Is there an alternative source of the estimated €35 million which alcohol companies put into sporting partnerships in Ireland?
This week the Oireachtas Committee investigating a proposed ban on alcohol sponsorship of sport ruled against the merit of a ban, suggesting a number of alternative measures in its place.
Day by day we will consider each of those recommendations, the basis on which it is made, how it might be put into practice and how it might have been put in place elsewhere around the world.
Today: Sponsorship by the Alcohol Drinks Industry should remain in place until such time as it can be replaced by other identifiable streams of comparable funding.
Proponents of a ban suggest that the decision needs to be taken on grounds of principle and that commercial self interest will lead to the vaccum a ban creates being filled by other commercial sponsors.
It is true that when tobacco advertising was banned in large measure in 1991 and almost entirely since 2005, other companies did step in. Carroll’s sponsorship within Golf switched to Nissan, Three and currently Golf Ireland. John Player Special was replaced in Formula One, Rothmans in Soccer and other brands by a multitude of different backers.
The largest single sector to step in was that of mobile phones. It was into a market though which even a decade ago was one tenth the size and value it is today.
Even then alcohol companies remained the dominant group within sport and tobacco ‘properties’ were taken on by others with banks growing their marketing spend as well as the phone companies.
Today banks are less aggressive and less in number. The same is potentially happening within phones as well with three and O2 reducing to one later this year.
The largest growth by sector in recent years has come from the betting and gaming sector where it is strong internationally through brands like betfair and bwin, as well as via domestic brands including Paddy Power, Boylesports and Betdaq.
This brings moral hazard of its own and as an existing sponsor it is not new coming to the market. Social media brands like twitter, google through you tube and Facebook all have strong presence in Ireland but have shown little appetite for cross media sponsorship.
This suggests then that the gap would be filled by less sponsors making more investment. Hardly a pot of gold waiting to be sprung.
In Australia for smaller sports the Government took the initiative of rewarding with equal investment from the public purse, those sports which relinquished investment from alcohol companies. Twelve national bodies including in soccer, basketball, swimming, cycling and hockey, have signed up to the deal and will share the equivalent of almost €18 million in Government funding drawn from alcohol taxes.
The Australian offer cannot extend to the major sports like Australian Rules, Cricket and Rugby League because of cost and with an economy roughly eight times the size of Ireland’s it might mean a little over €2 million in funding here but it may be a start and perhaps ahead of what the smaller sports get from drinks companies here at present anyway.
One other alternative which we have suggested is to invest in public education in the same way as has been done through the Road Safety Authority.
The budget for that would be broadly similar to the amount spent on alcohol sponsorship but a large part goes on TV advertising which would be additional expenditure on top. The benefit in terms of lives saved and public well being would only emerge over 20 years as opposed to a single bank holiday weekend and that makes it politically less of a positive issue to gather around.
Nevertheless the public health costs of abuse are far more than the money that would replace alcohol sponsorship and if the link is as opponents of alcohol suggest then it would quickly become a zero sum game.
Coming up on Sport for Business…
Friday: A Code of Practice for the consumption of alcohol within stadia should be drawn- up by all sporting organisations.
Monday: A fixed percentage of all sponsorship received by each and every organisation (sporting, cultural, arts, music etc.) from the alcohol drinks industry, should be ring-fenced and paid into a central fund to be administered by an appropriate body. That fund should be used exclusively for Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention Programmes.
Tuesday: Sponsorship of sports and sporting events should be treated in the same way as sponsorship of the arts, music and other festivals.
Wednesday: A Code should be introduced to make it mandatory for all brand owners and rights-holders to provide responsible training in selling, advertising and marketing and to promote responsible drinking at all sponsored events.
Thursday: All sporting organisations should be encouraged to support programmes which contribute to social inclusion in order to reduce the abuse of alcohol, particularly among young people.
Friday: A prohibition on sponsorship by the alcohol industry should only be considered if it is done on a pan-European basis in order to ensure that Irish sports and sporting organisations are not operating at a disadvantage relative to their international competitors.
The Committee report can be downloaded here
Read more of our analysis of Alcohol and Sport and other issues by clicking on the links below:
Alcohol Sponsorship Membership Benefits Sports Funding
Money from the sky? Alcohol and Sport
