CSPI: NCAA Can Survive Without Beer Ads

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is again urging National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) President Myles Brand to end beer advertisements on college sports broadcasts, citing new research suggesting that the NCAA would survive financially if beer ads were eliminated.

Beer ads during the 2008 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament represented a combined $42.8 million (7 percent) of the total $643 million collected by CBS for the tournament, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

“With the tournament’s popularity and ability to attract other advertisers, the NCAA can clearly make a handsome profit without beer ads,” said George Hacker, director of CSPI’s Alcohol Policies Project. “There’s absolutely no reason to allow beer advertisements when so many other advertisers are willing to place their message in front of the attentive, young audience the NCAA enjoys.”

Trailing only to the Super Bowl when comparing advertising rates, the NCAA basketball tournament has enjoyed an increase of 24 percent in total revenue since 2007. The NCAA, which has attracted roughly 300 advertisers over the last 10 years, aired 140 advertisements during the ’March Madness’ championship game in 2008. Out of these, only 10 advertisements were for beer.

The NCAA says its alcohol advertising policy is the most “conservative and restrictive of any televised sport,” banning advertisements for tobacco products and gambling and limiting beer advertisements to 60 seconds per hour — or 120 seconds total per game.

However, according to CSPI’s Campaign for Alcohol-Free Sports, the concentration of beer-ad spending on the basketball tournament is almost triple that aired during other television programming.

Read CSPI’s letter to NCAA President Brand (PDF, 45K)