Public Health Experts Want the Olympics to Drop Its Oldest Sponsor

August 6, 2024:

Since then, every Summer and Winter Olympics has adopted a strict smoke-free policy and, since 2010, a complete tobacco-free policy. Smoking is not permitted at any Paris 2024 venues except in designated areas—a rule that extends to vaping.

Alcoholic beverage companies are another category of controversial Olympic sponsors, from Molson Brewery at the 1976 Montreal Olympics to Heineken at the 2004 Athens games.

Though the IOC is partnered with AB InBev, the world’s leading brewer, Corona Cero—a zero-alcohol drink—is the global beer sponsor of the Paris Olympics. The Olympic Committee says this highlights both organizations’ “commitment to responsible consumption and a better world.”

Efforts like the Kick Big Soda Out of Sport campaign aren’t coming out of nowhere. In the 2012 London Olympics, Coca-Cola’s sponsorship, which featured various promotional activities focused on youth engagement, faced significant backlash. And in 2021, the company’s sponsorship changed; Coca-Cola now has a joint “Olympic Partner,” or TOP, agreement with Mengniu, a Chinese dairy-product company, that makes them the exclusive non-alcoholic beverage sponsors of the Games. (The TOP programme is the Olympics’ highest level of sponsorship.)

“Coca-Cola gets positively connected with a dairy food company and the ‘health halo’ that comes with that,” says Joe Piggin, senior lecturer in sport Policy at Loughborough University. Therefore, though a joint sponsorship may seem to lessen the significance of Coca-Cola’s funding, strategically this move actually leverages the company’s sponsorship and future longevity.

From 2021 to 2032 (when their contract is up), the joint sponsors will pay an estimated total of $3 billion to the IOC. Coca-Cola’s 14-person athlete roster was revealed in the lead up to the 2024 games. The face of this campaign is this image, in which the athletes hold bottles of Coca-Cola’s drinks. Certain athletes hold full-sugar Coca-Cola itself, which has 53 grams of sugar per 500ml—almost double the recommended daily sugar intake for an adult.

Many of the athletes hold Powerade Original, another of Coca-Cola’s drinks, which contains 5.8 grams of sugar per 600ml bottle, almost 20% of recommended daily intake. (Powerade is also the official drink of the US Olympic team.)

Experts have said that this marketing strategy mirrors Olympians of the past hawking cigarettes. A recent project by the Centre For the Study of Tobacco and Society investigated this, noting that Harold “Dutch” Smith, a high-diving champion, was quoted in a 1935 Saturday Evening Post ad saying “Camels don’t get your wind.”

“If a cigarette company tried to run a commercial on network TV during the Olympics, there would be such an outcry. It [should be] no different for Coca-Cola,” says Lustig. (“The Coca-Cola Company provides a wide range of beverage options that include dairy and juice drinks as well as water, tea, coffee, and sparkling beverages, with many sugar-free options available,” an IOC spokesperson tells WIRED.)

“We urge sports organizations to stop promoting unhealthy food and drink and work with health experts to create a healthier food environment,” Zoe Davies, a nutritionist from Action on Sugar said in a statement issued to WIRED.

Coca-Cola did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment. ”The company has used its front groups to advance the argument that the lack of physical exercise and not its sugary drinks are fueling an obesity crisis,” says researcher Ashka Naik from Corporate Responsibility. However, Coca-Cola has been criticized for its manipulation of science to justify this shifting of blame.

Experts that WIRED spoke with consistently held that Coca-Cola should be the next Olympic sponsor to go; however, they don’t expect this to happen any time soon.

Many experts suggested a shift shouldn’t be left to the organizations themselves. In order to stop sports organizations from “taking money from ultra-processed food companies,” there must be “public policy measures,” says Lustig. “When there are more votes than dollars, that’s when things will change.”

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