The alcohol industry spent $100 million marketing to Super Bowl 2026’s 115 million viewers. An estimated 25 million were children. Research consistently shows these exposures drive youth alcohol use – and the industry knows it. AB InBev was the single largest advertiser at the game, across all categories.
Super Bowl 2026 delivered what the alcohol industry craves most: access to a captive mass audience. With 114.8 million viewers tuning in to watch the Seattle Seahawks defeat the New England Patriots, the championship game gave alcohol producers a direct channel to tens of millions of households, including an estimated 25 million children and adolescents.
Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest beer producer, secured 2.5 minutes of national airtime across three of its brands: Budweiser, Bud Light, and Michelob Ultra. This made AB InBev the single largest advertiser at Super Bowl 2026 – not just in alcohol, but across all product categories, outspending every tech company, pharmaceutical brand, and automaker. At $8 million per 30-second spot – with premium placements reaching $10 million – this translated to an airtime investment of approximately $40 million for beer alone. For the first time since 1989, a vodka brand also advertised: Svedka, owned by Sazerac, purchased a 30-second slot to air an AI-generated commercial.
These figures reflect only airtime. Production costs, celebrity fees, and amplification campaigns typically multiply total investment by a factor of two to three. When accounting for production, talent, experiential activations, and digital extensions – including Diageo’s stadium and tailgate campaigns for Don Julio, Captain Morgan, and Smirnoff – total alcohol industry investment in Super Bowl 2026 likely exceeded $100 million.
The End of Exclusivity – and the
Expansion of Spirits Advertising
For 33 years – from 1989 to 2022 – Anheuser-Busch held exclusive rights to alcohol advertising during the Super Bowl, a deal reportedly worth $250 million annually. In 2022, the company declined to renew, opening the field to competitors for the first time since the late 1980s.
Four years into the post-exclusivity era, the alcohol advertising landscape has shifted significantly. Svedka’s entry marked the first vodka advertisement in Super Bowl history since at least 1989. Diageo brands including Don Julio, Captain Morgan, and Smirnoff ran experiential campaigns around the game, even if not purchasing in-broadcast slots.
Despite sharing the stage, AB InBev remained dominant. According to data from iSpot, the company was the largest advertiser across all categories at Super Bowl 2026 – outspending Google, Amazon, Anthropic, pharmaceutical giants, and every other brand competing for attention. Since the first Super Bowl in 1967, AB InBev has purchased more ads during the game than any other company.
Yet the share of alcohol advertising as a percentage of total Super Bowl commercials dropped to 15-year lows. This decline reflects broader pressure on the alcohol industry: Gen Z is using less alcohol than any previous generation, health consciousness is rising, and global alcohol sales are in decline – down 4% since 2018, wiping more than $800 billion from the value of leading alcohol companies. .
This pressure has driven more sophisticated deployment across platforms. AB InBev’s Bud Light hosted a concert with Post Malone in San Francisco, Michelob Ultra ran experiential activations tied to its Olympic sponsorship, and Smirnoff targeted Gen Z through tailgate events and stadium activations rather than relying solely on television.
Children in the Crosshairs
With 69% of US consumers having planned to watch Super Bowl 2026, the event is one of the largest simultaneous alcohol marketing exposures of the year. An estimated 25 million underage viewers were exposed to alcohol advertising during the broadcast.
Research consistently demonstrates that exposure to alcohol advertising increases the likelihood that adolescents will begin using alcohol – and that those already using will increase their consumption. The pervasive nature of these advertisements during high-profile events normalises alcohol use and associates it with the excitement of sport, making it particularly appealing to younger audiences.
Alcohol Justice has consistently condemned Super Bowl alcohol advertising. Ahead of Super Bowl LIX in 2025, the organisation noted: “The association of alcohol with sports creates a dangerous narrative that alcohol use is integral to enjoying athletic events. This not only misleads young viewers but also fosters a culture where alcohol misuse is accepted and even celebrated.”
A University of Virginia Darden School of Business analysis published ahead of Super Bowl 2026 noted that the NFL is actively working to attract younger audiences to the game, with sports marketing expert Anthony Palomba drawing comparisons to historic tobacco advertising: “It does remind me of Joe Camel with cigarettes years ago, where a cigarette is a very adult, boring thing. You could argue the same for football. Let’s zhuzh it up for children.”
A Global Pattern: Sports as a Vehicle
for Alcohol Promotion
The Super Bowl is the most visible expression of a systematic alcohol industry strategy.
A 2022 study from Australia found that the top ten alcohol companies placed 10,660 alcohol ads during sports broadcasts over a 12-month period – an average of 75 minutes of alcohol advertising per week. Almost half (45%) of these ads aired during children’s viewing times.
The alcohol industry invested more than $600 million in sports sponsorship globally in 2020 alone, making alcohol companies one of the largest industrial spenders on sports advertising. This investment is not philanthropic. As AB InBev’s own executives have stated, marketing campaigns are designed to drive “highest-ever” volume sales.
A 2019 landmark study reviewed data from nearly 13,000 participants across seven countries and found that exposure to alcohol sports sponsorship drives increased alcohol use, including heavy and high-risk consumption. As study co-author Professor Kerry O’Brien of Monash University explained: “Alcohol advertising and sponsorship not only send a message directly encouraging people to use alcohol, but tends to implicitly and/or unconsciously associate a product, like beer, within a specific context of going to the football or watching a sports match on television.”
As Movendi International’s analysis of Super Bowl 2023 documented, the end of AB InBev’s exclusivity deal triggered a “beer and booze war” that is only accelerating. Alcohol companies are investing billions to ensure they reach children, youth, and adults through sports – with the explicit goal of driving consumption and maximising profits.
The Effective Solution
The World Health Organization has consistently identified comprehensive restrictions on alcohol advertising, sponsorship, and promotion as one of the most effective and cost-effective strategies to prevent and reduce alcohol harm.
When researchers modelled the potential impact of a complete ban on alcohol marketing in the United States, they found it would lead to a 16% reduction in alcohol-related years of life lost among young adults.
Norway has maintained a complete ban on alcohol advertising – including sports sponsorship – since 1975. Crucially, the ban extends to surrogate marketing: non-alcoholic products cannot be advertised under brand names associated with alcohol, closing the loophole that allows Heineken 0.0 or Budweiser Zero to function as alcohol advertisements elsewhere. Research shows the ban led to a 7.4% reduction in alcohol sales. Norwegian sport has not collapsed. It simply found other sponsors.
On 9 February 2026, an estimated 25 million children watched an industry in decline spend $100 million trying to secure its next generation of customers. They did not choose to see Clydesdales and bald eagles selling beer, or AI robots selling vodka. The adults responsible for protecting them made that choice – or failed to make a different one.