WHO Bulletin: Alcohol Advertising in Sport Events

In NCDs prevention, an emphasis is often placed on lifestyles and personal responsibility for addressing risk factors. This approach ignores the limited control that many people have over their circumstances and their exposure to the marketing activities of transnational corporations.
Professional sport represents a profitable global entertainment industry. Multinational corporations use the visibility and widespread appeal of sports to promote their brands and products to mass audiences. Yet, public health professionals rarely discuss the nature of this influence in professional sport and the methods by which global corporations use sporting events, leagues and clubs to sell products harmful to health. Sponsors for these sports include the beer company Anheuser-Busch InBev and the whiskey company Jack Daniel’s.
The researchers suggest that policy-makers who wish to reverse the NCDs burden should consider how sport has been used to promote products that harm health and whether regulation may be required to control this marketing…

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