Introduction

The alcoholic beverage industry is one of the biggest businesses in the United States today. Being one of the largest businesses there are several companies within the industry that make incredible amounts of money. All the different alcohol companies compete to become the most popular, because the more popular a company is the more money they make. To become the most popular, the alcohol companies have to advertise their products in places that the greatest amounts of possible consumers spend their time. College sports fans are a very large group of alcohol consumers, making the places that these people are around great spots to advertise. College sports fans spend a lot of time in front of their televisions and in various athletic venues, making these places very strategic places for alcohol companies to advertise. With the large amount of money these sports fans spend on alcohol every year, alcohol companies are more than willing to pay high prices to get their products seen in these areas. Colleges can make extraordinary amounts of money by allowing alcohol companies to advertise in their athletic complexes or on the broadcasting of their games. The problem colleges have with allowing alcohol companies to do this is the high amount of people under the drinking age that will come in contact with the advertisements. This forces colleges across America to decide whether they are going to accept the sponsorship from the alcohol companies or turn them down because of the many problems that alcohol places on our society today. The researcher will show the positive and negative effects of allowing alcohol company sponsorships on college campuses, while also including what some universities have decided for themselves.

Reasons Schools Should Allow Alcohol Company Sponsorship

There are many reasons schools should allow alcohol company sponsorship. The sale of alcohol is as legal as the sale of food, as long as the person buying the alcohol is of age. Alcohol companies do not advertise to minors, minors cannot buy their products. Accepting the sponsorship dollars could help the athletic department fund sports that do not make enough money on their own to successfully support their self. College students spend money on alcohol every week and alcohol companies are more than willing to give some of that money back through advertisements.

Since 1984 anyone younger than 21 years of age has not been able to consume or purchase alcohol products. Alcohol products include beer, spirits, wine, or any other beverage containing one-half percent alcohol. Stores that sell alcohol are required by law to see identification on the purchase of alcohol to prove the age of the consumer. Anyone under the age of 21 that drinks alcohol partakes in an illegal action and anyone over the age of 21 are not doing anything wrong under federal law. Therefore, the creation of beverages with added alcohol is perfectly legal and the companies that do it are part of a perfectly legal business(APIS).

Some people argue that the alcohol companies try to market their products to people under the age of 21. To combat the prosecutions alcohol companies, including beer, wine and spirits, have codes set up that do not allow them to have ads in places that will viewed by people under the age of 21. The beer code does not even allow actors under the age of 25 or possible child heroes, such as athletes and cartoons, to be in their commercials. When it comes to online advertising, the industry has disclaimers on their websites stating that their products are intended for people over 21 years of age only. The companies also register their websites with filtering programs that do not allow their website to be viewed by minors, however only one-third of parents use these programs. There are no codes set by the alcohol companies for advertising on college campuses, but seventy-two percent of schools do not allow it anyway(Evans, J. M. & Kelly, R. F.).

Another reason schools should allow alcohol companies to sponsor their school is the need of money. Not all athletic programs make enough money to offer the support it takes to run certain sports successfully. Most sports are not as popular as football and basketball, where the teams can make enough money off their games to have enough money to do everything they need to do and buy everything they need to buy. This year, 2007, will possibly be the last year for Oregon University’s wrestling team. The athletic department is looking to replace the team with a baseball team partially because the wrestling team is not financially sustainable. Along with training for a successful season, the Oregon wrestling team is spending a lot of time raising money to take away their financial burden they have placed upon the athletic department. Is it possible that the Ducks will have a wrestling team next year? Since 1982 one-hundred and thirty-three wrestling teams have been dropped across the nation, five schools alone are from the Pac-10 Conference. If Oregon loses their wrestling team, only eight four-year colleges will remain in the West that have wrestling programs. In the Pacific Northwest alone there are nearly 33,000 high school wrestlers to fill the rosters at eight schools, which means only about six percent of the kids will be able to continue to compete in college. To many kids this could be more than the end of their wrestling career; it could be the end of their education. College tuition is not cheap and not all families can afford it; without the possibility of an athletic scholarship, school might be out of the question. The money that schools could receive from the alcohol companies could go to funding sports that have a hard time funding their self. Doing this would help many kids pay for college and keep ancient sports, such as wrestling, alive(Steinbach, P.).

Every weekend thousands of college students spend money on alcohol. In fact, over forty percent of college students drink at least five drinks every weekend. With this large amount of college students supporting alcohol companies it seems like the schools should get something in return. Forty percent of college students in the United States accounts for over 8 million people, which is 8 million people that spend money on alcohol every week. So if the college students that drink spend two dollars for every drink they buy, the alcohol companies make eighty million dollars a week from college students alone(Hingson, R. W., Heeren, T., Zakocs, R. C., Kopstein, A. & Wechsler, H. ( March 2002).).

With the amount of money college students spend on alcohol, all the alcohol companies should want to advertise around them. By gaining favor of just twenty college students alcohol companies can boost their yearly income over one grand, or they can lose that much by another alcohol company stealing their consumers.   In 2001 and 2002, 51.3 million dollars were spent on ads during the NCAA men’s basketball tournament by alcohol companies. During those same years, beer companies alone spent 10.8 million dollars on ads during the NCAA football season. With alcohol companies willing to spend this kind of money, how can a school refuse to accept the sponsorship(Join Together)?

Accepting money from alcohol companies could be very beneficial for colleges all over the nation. There is nothing legally wrong with it and it could help send several more kids to college every year. The alcohol companies have already demonstrated the amount of money they are looking to spend on advertising and that amount of money is hard to ignore. Colleges are just going to have to decide if their students are responsible enough to understand the consequences associated with the consumption of alcohol.

Reasons Schools Should Not Accept Alcohol Company Sponsorship

Schools should do anything they possibly can to keep alcohol away from their students, even if it means the loss of money. Studies show that the more a person drinks the more likely they are to skip class, hurt their self, or vandalize. The more people drink the more likely they are to drive under the influence, an action that can cause harm to them and/or other people. Sexual assault, increased sex drive, and rape are largely associated with alcohol use, a major problem on campuses across the nation. Violence and hate crimes are also associated with alcohol use. Extensive amounts of alcohol abuse can lead to alcoholism, a very serious condition that contains several other negative effects combined with the aforementioned.

When people drink they tend to forget about their long term goals, such as becoming a doctor or lawyer, and decide that staying up all night is more important that going to class. While drunk people only think about the present and don’t think about the next day and how it could affect the rest of their life. By skipping a class a student can become very lost and may not be able to ever catch back up. This may cause gifted students to earn very low grades and average students to give up on school all together. Each year staggering amounts of freshman, 159,000, dropout of college because of reasons involving alcohol. When large amounts of students perform badly at the same college it gives the college a bad reputation. No parents are going to want to send their kids to a college that has one of the highest freshman dropout rates in the country. Schools should do what ever they can to try and keep as many freshmen that enter their school until they graduate.

Alcohol abuse has some very tragic short-term effects. One-quarter of all emergency room admissions and suicides are due to alcohol along with one-half of homicides, domestic violence incidents, and traffic and fire victim fatalities. Every day five college students die and 1,641 are injured, thanks in part to alcohol(Whitney, E. & Rolfes, S. R. (2008)) Every year 1,445 students die and 500,000 are injured due to alcohol. With these numbers it would seem that schools would do anything they could to start the decline of these accidents. Until alcohol leaves the hands of college students these figures are going to continue to exist; if alcohol use among college students increases these numbers are likely to increase in number also( Murphy, J. G., Hoyme, C. K., Colby, S. M. & Borsari, B. (January 2006).).

A common act among intoxicated teenagers is vandalism. Vandalism includes: graffiti, fire starting, the breaking of windows and lights, and the destruction of street signs. Vandalism costs cities thousands of dollars every year, especially around college campuses where teenagers have the opportunity to live in group settings. When several students get together and drink alcohol someone in the group always seems to come up with a brilliant idea of doing something illegal, usually vandalizing something. Not many people would find pleasure in throwing a rock through a window or spray painting their name on a wall when they were sober, mainly because they would be too scared of getting caught by authorities. When people are sober, the consequences of their actions are easier remembered than when they have been drinking. With the possibility of losing money due to kids drinking, colleges should do whatever they can to keep their students sober and not out costing the college money which could be spent somewhere else(Casa Palmera.).

Driving under the influence of alcohol is one of the greatest problems in America today and is the leading cause of death among young people. Nearly half of all traffic accidents are alcohol related and many college students are involved. The worst part about this act is that many people that are not doing anything wrong find their self in the wrong place at the right time and it often costs them their life. In 1998 almost four-thousand college-aged people died at the hands of alcohol and an automobile, of that number over one-thousand were enrolled in college. With the high amount of college binge drinkers the amount of deaths from drinking alcohol and driving is not that alarming, nearly sixty percent of binge drinkers in college drive after becoming drunk. Every day several college students are becoming part of very tragic statistics(Hingson, R.W., et al.).

When people drink they engage in sexual activities that they normally would not, which can result in unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Four out of five college students report being sexually active, thirty-three percent say they have had over five partners, and three in five used condoms inconsistently. These sexual practices provide an explanation for the eighty-five percent of sexual active college students that have contracted STDs. When drinking guys have been known to become sexually aggressive and force their will upon women that do not want to consensually have sex with them. This is known as rape and has become a problem on nearly all college campuses. Rape can be very detrimental to girl’s mental and physical health. Some girls have even dropped out of college after being raped. Without alcohol there are not many guys in the world that would have the audacity to rape a woman(College Drinking- Changing the Culture.).

Alcohol can turn a nice person into a violent being. Alcohol reduces a person’s ability to reason and they can misunderstand someone’s words or actions and respond with aggression. This is possible because alcohol increases testosterone amounts in men and lowers serotonin, a substance that lowers inhibition. Some people believe alcohol leads to aggression and can become more aggressive with increased alcohol consumption just because of the belief. A large proportion of college students have reported being victimized by an intoxicated individual, it is also suspected that the victimized are fellow intoxicated students. In fraternity houses, fights often break out between two drunken men over minor disagreements. Alcohol gives people an enhanced sense of strength and size and makes them believe that they can win a fight against anyone in the room at the time. Later on, when they have sobered up, they might not feel as big as they did when they were intoxicated and can really come to regret some of the problems that they brought upon their self while they were drinking.(Wechsler, H., & Wuethrich, B. (2002).).

Hate crimes are usually reported along with alcohol use. As people drink and become more aggressive than normal they sometimes release their prejudice beliefs. Many African-American people have reported racial hostility on campuses. For instance, in 2000 several white fraternity brothers beat up and African-American student on the campus of Washington State University. The fraternity stated later that the attack had nothing to do with the color of the student’s skin, but that statement was ignored by many people. In a similar incident a student at Georgetown University defamed a Jewish menorah and later said he only did it because he was drunk. No one knows whether the hate crimes performed on campuses are fueled by alcohol, but alcohol is clearly a factor in the action (Wechsler, H., & Wuethrich, B. (2002).).

Binge drinking can lead to a chronic disease known as alcoholism or alcohol dependence. Alcoholism is the worst form of alcohol abuse. A person suffering from alcoholism will continue to drink despite personal, family, or legal problems. Alcohol dependence causes a person to crave alcohol even after being sober for an extensive amount of time. When an alcoholic stops drinking they can get withdrawals which make them become sweaty, nauseous, and shaky. Alcoholism can also lead to deadly diseases such as cancer and cirrhosis of the liver. Like any other disease alcoholism can be treated with medicine. Many alcoholics never get the chance to get medicine because they take too long in recognizing their problem. The longer amount of time an alcoholic goes untreated the higher their chances are of dying from one of the many side effects of chronic alcohol abuse(Psychology Today Staff.).

With the many problems that come from the consumption of alcohol it doesn’t seem that schools would want to help build the alcohol companies’ popularity. The more popular the alcohol companies are the more alcohol they are going to sell, with college students being a prime consumer. By allowing alcohol companies to advertise on campus they are only showing their students ways that they can ruin their life. One night of drinking can kill a student through automobile accidents or one of the many other accidents that happen due to drunkenness. Students that drink also damage school property, which takes away from the appearance of the school that can help persuade a future student’s college choice. Violence makes any place seem unpleasant and alcohol can make any place seem violent. Drinking every weekend can lead to alcoholism, a condition that can kill someone in many different ways. Schools should do the best they can to keep anything associated with alcohol away from their students. By having alcohol advertisements plastered right in their student’s faces they are only increases their chances of trying alcohol. With increased alcohol ads comes increased alcoholics; with increased alcoholics come increased deaths due to alcohol. Forbidding alcohol company advertisements on campus will not guarantee decreased alcohol use, but there is no way a decrease in advertisements would cause an increase of alcohol use.

What Some Schools Have Decided

There are many schools that have taken the first step to stopping alcohol abuse by becoming a “dry campus”, meaning that students or anyone else of any age are not allowed to have alcohol on the campus. Other schools have gone as far as to keep alcohol companies out of their athletic broadcasts. Ohio State University has taken all alcohol advertisements out of their local broadcasts. Their athletic director, Andy Geiger, said he didn’t want the school to be accused of hypocrisy by telling their students not to abuse alcohol on one level while supporting the alcohol companies on another. By taking this action against alcohol, Ohio State hopes to see a national ban of alcohol during all college sports broadcasts, including such prestigious events as the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Other colleges have joined Ohio State, including Florida State University and North Carolina University. The schools’ goal in cutting alcohol advertisements is to gain back the credibility they lost by saying their greatest concern on campus is alcohol while they were selling their students to alcohol marketers(NCAA is Major Draw for Beer Ads.).

To help increase the amount of money schools make through advertisements, many schools are turning their marketing over to an outside company. The outside marketing companies guarantee a school a certain amount of income every year and then they take the rest. However, a marketing company is only going to off their services to large schools, where they can generate the greatest amount of money. If the company only meets the income they guaranteed to the school they make no income themselves, they must do their best to make far more money than the guaranteed income. One reason schools are turning their marketing over to these outside companies is that they make more money than they did before. When a school turns over to an outside firm, they lose all the decisions they used to make about their sponsors. This means that they marketing company can decide to work with alcohol companies. This has been the choice for such colleges as the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Southern California, and the University of Georgia. These schools promote alcohol companies to their students and fans while insisting on that everyone maintain good judgment when it came to the consumption of alcohol(McKindra, L.).

Conclusion

The researcher concludes that colleges across America have been faced with a problem that they will not be able to ignore. Alcohol companies are willing to pay astonishing amounts of money to place advertisements on college campuses and their media broadcasts. Alcohol use also causes numerous problems for college students and the college itself. The colleges must decide whether the reasons for allowing alcohol company sponsorships are greater then the reasons for not allowing alcohol company sponsorships. Alcohol companies are part of a legal business and stores are not allowed to sale alcoholic beverages to anyone under the age of 18. College students spend great amounts of money on alcohol every weekend; the schools could get part of the money back by allowing alcohol company sponsorship. The athletic programs at nearly every school across the nation are in need of extra finances, which could be found in the cost of the alcohol advertisements. However, money never outweighs the lives of human beings, which are lost every year due to alcohol related accidents. While many college students die because of alcohol, cutting out alcohol advertisements from school functions will probably not decrease the amount of deaths because students will continue to drink alcohol. Is the money alcohol companies pay to schools worth the amount of money they will have to pay to repair the pieces of property vandalized by intoxicated students? Before deciding whether or not schools should allow alcohol company sponsorships, one must consider these thoughts. Alcohol itself does not cause many problems, it is the abuse of alcohol that does. Incidents of vandalism, sexual assault, fights, and hate crimes most always involve at least one intoxicated individual.

In the 1920’s the United States tried to make it illegal to have anything to do with alcohol and it did not work, people found ways to drink alcohol outside of the law. The researcher believes that schools are attempting to do the same thing by getting rid of alcohol sponsorship. History has shown that people in general are going to drink alcohol no matter what the law says. Just like the United States lost tax dollars by banning the sale of alcohol throughout the whole country, colleges will lose money from banning the advertising of alcohol on their campus and media broadcasts. The researcher agrees that alcohol consumption causes many problems for college students, but believes there will have to be a different way to decrease the problems that come with it.

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