Alcohol Sponsorship Of Sport

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CONTESTING ALCOHOL SPORT SPONSORSHIP.
Alcohol sponsorship of sport is common in Australia, with much debate about the appropriateness of linking sport with alcohol advertising and promotion. This paper provides examples of such sponsorships to appreciate the extent and nature of the complex relationship between sport and alcohol sponsors. The public health and policy implications of alcohol sponsorship of sport extending to creating a sporting competition purely to promote an alcohol brand are considered.
Sports participation has been associated with adolescent alcohol use. Differences also exist between genders in both sports participation and patterns of alcohol-related behaviors, but there are few longitudinal investigations of this relationship.
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For example, in Europe, nearly all (over 9 in 10) 15- to 16-year-old students have drunk alcohol at some point in their life (Currie et al., 2004), starting on average just after 12½ years of age. Data from the 2003 European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) found that the average amount of alcohol drunk by 15- to 16-year olds on the last drinking occasion was 60 g (six drinks) (Hibell et al., 2004). Over one in eight (13%) of 15- to 16-year-old students reported being drunk more than 20 times in their life, and over one in six (18%) reported binge drinking (5+ drinks on a single occasion) three times or more in the last month. Binge drinking in young people has increased across much of Europe in the last 10 years, although more so in the early part of this period (Anderson and Baumberg, …show more content…
For young people who have not started to drink, expectancies are influenced by normative assumptions about teenage drinking as well as through the observation of drinking by parents, peers and models in the mass media. Research has linked exposure to portrayals of alcohol use in the mass media with the development of positive drinking expectancies by children and adolescents (Austin and Knaus, 2000; Austin et al., 2000). Young people with more positive affective responses to alcohol advertising hold more favourable drinking expectancies, perceive greater social approval for drinking, believe drinking is more common among peers and adults, and intend to drink more as adults (Chen and Grube,