RWC’s booze backing queried
Is alcohol sponsorship out of sync with sport? Harrison Christian reports.
The Rugby World Cup is ‘‘saturated’’ with booze sponsors, but alcohol has no place in international or local sport, experts say.
Massey University professor Sally Casswell is calling for a global response to alcohol harm.
In an editorial for medical journal The Lancet, this week Caswell suggested a treaty similar to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, a watershed moment for global health that has brought stricter controls on tobacco to almost 200 countries since 2005.
The professor told the Sunday Star-Times the alcohol industry’s almost ubiquitous sponsorship of New Zealand sport was ‘‘very problematic’’, particularly for young people.
‘‘It creates a positive association with the brand. A team like the Warriors – you’d have to say the players in the team are heroes of the young,’’ Casswell said.
‘‘We have many years ago stopped tobacco sponsorship in sport. I think it’s quite urgent for New Zealand to look at it.’’
Dr Nicki Jackson, executive director of Alcohol Healthwatch, said successive governments had ignored cues to rein in liquor sponsorship.
‘‘Alcohol and sport, they’re synonymous with each other nowadays. You only have to watch the Rugby World Cup to see how saturated it is with alcohol marketing.’’
The Rugby World Cup counts Heineken among its six worldwide sponsors. More than half of the teams are backed by at least one beer or wine company.
Australia has Taylors Wines; the Irish, Scots and English have Guinness (and the Scots have Johnnie Walker as well); South Africa has Castle Lager.
In New Zealand, the majority of professional sports teams are sponsored by alcohol companies, to the tune of about $21.3 million a year.
NZ Rugby is the biggest player, taking about 75 per cent of all sponsorship revenue, Jackson said.
The All Blacks have had a decades-long association with Steinlager. The Warriors have the Woodstock Bourbon logo on their jerseys.
NZ Rugby’s sponsorship contract with Lion, and the Warriors’ contract with Independent Liquor – Japanese-owned transnational alcohol companies – are both understood to be up for renewal in 2020.
Asked if it would renew its Lion contract, NZ Rugby’s chief commercial officer Richard Thomas said the organisation had enjoyed a ‘‘very positive and long partnership’’ with the company.
A spokesperson for the Warriors said he couldn’t comment because the club’s chief executive was on leave.
NZ Rugby’s 2017 Respect and Responsibility Review briefly touched on its sponsorship deal.
‘‘Alcohol is a strong feature of the current culture of rugby in New Zealand, reflecting the social setting of rugby and a long established sponsorship relationship,’’ the report said. ‘‘While the current alcohol sponsorship ends in 2020, there is the opportunity to utilise this relationship to emphasise responsible drinking and hosting.’’
In a comprehensive 2010 review, the Law Commission recommended the government introduce ‘‘measures that aim to restrict the promotion of alcohol, including sponsorship, in all media.’’ Some of the commission’s recommendations were implemented in the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012, but not the ones regarding sponsorship. Five years ago the government received another recommendation to limit booze marketing in sport, this time from the Ministerial Forum on Alcohol Advertising and Sponsorship.
It proposed banning alcohol sponsorship of sports and introducing a sponsorship replacement funding programme.
‘‘The Government still hasn’t responded to the recommendations,’’ said Jackson.
The Health Promotion Agency’s alcohol research isfunded by a levy on alcohol products, which generates about $11 million a year.
If trebled, that levy could generate the $20-30 million needed to replace alcohol sponsorship in sport, Jackson said. It’s how Australia replaced tobacco sponsorship, with a levy on tobacco.