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Further implications
The commercialisation of sport in Australia has dramatically increased the profits to be made by players, clubs and associations; however, it has also dramatically increased the costs associated with running the sport. Sponsorship has become an accepted (and some would argue necessary) part of the sporting landscape. The difficulty is the public health costs associated with such sponsorship.
Governments have sought for decades to harness the public health benefits of Australians' passion for sport. They have sought to use this enthusiasm to get young people, in particular, to become more physically active. However, such efforts are frustrated at the source, when alcohol advertising during and sponsorship of sporting events confuses the message received by young players and spectators. The health benefits of participating in sport are dramatically undermined, if not negated, if part of that participation becomes an encouragement to drink alcohol to excess.
In Australia, both State and Commonwealth governments have implemented programs that provide a replacement source of funding for activities sponsored by alcohol. When Health
Promotion Foundations such as VicHealth (Victoria) and Healthway (Western Australia) were initially established, a key function was to provide alternative sources of funding for sports and cultural organisations reliant on tobacco sponsorship.
More recently, the Federal Government established the Community Sponsorship Fund to provide alternatives to alcohol industry sponsorship for local sporting and cultural organisations and events and, in exchange for Federal Government funding, twelve of Australia's top sporting Codes signed a pledge to shun alcohol sponsorship. To expand these funding programs, some commentators have suggested that, much like was done with tobacco, a proportion of the excise duty currently gathered by governments from alcohol sales could be set aside for funding sporting and cultural events.
In the current political climate, where so much emphasis is being placed on governments exercising fiscal restraint, such a move is likely to prove unattractive to governments. Yet in the longer term, while we struggle as a country to reduce the burdens placed on our health care system, reducing the harm caused by excessive alcohol consumption is a major benefit.
A number of countries have banned alcohol sponsorship without any significant impact on cultural and sporting sectors. The sponsorship of sports by alcohol brands is prohibited in
France, Norway, Denmark, Russia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Turkey, Jordan, Mauritius, Algeria, Qatar and Indonesia. Although France has had a longstanding ban in place, it has successfully hosted various international sporting events, such as the 1998 FIFA World Cup and, most recently, the multi-nation Heineken Cup Rugby competition. The latter event was renamed the H-Cup in France and references to the alcohol beverage company Heineken were omitted from media coverage and merchandise associated with the event. The fact that upcoming Football World Cups are to be hosted by two countries which ban alcohol sponsorship of sports (Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022) suggests that alcohol sponsorship bans do not undermine the capacity to host international sporting events.
As free-to-air television stations struggle in a diminishing sector, the appeal of alcohol advertising is likely to become greater. However, if the nexus between sport and alcohol through sponsorship could be broken, there would presumably be many advertisers prepared to vie for the chance to advertise substantially during sport telecasts.
Please note: some of the material discussed within this outline was first addressed in issue outline No.8/2013. It may be of interest to readers to see the manner in which the issue has developed in the intervening period.