Issue #17: Are college partnerships with alcohol companies a concern?

Dozens of partnerships have popped up to help NIL collectives pay athletes while others add to university general funds. Are these problematic? Who's to say...

Several years back, I covered New Belgium Brewing entering a partnership with NC State University to brew a branded beer.

Initially, I thought it was a neat way to engage a new audience. But is it really that simple? Today there are dozens of branded partnerships between alcohol companies and colleges — or at least the NIL collectives that started to help pay college athletes.

I have thoughts and no conclusions. Please read and let us know what you think!

Also in this issue:

• Literary Libations: The Wedding People

• Week of good reads

• What we’re drinking

The complexity of college x booze partnerships

This week, a package arrived in the mail containing a unique college and alcohol brand partnership: Notre Dame-branded Irish whiskey from Teeling Whiskey.

At first glance, there is not a lot to think about. Notre Dame’s nickname is the Fighting Irish, and the school has plenty of connections to Ireland. Universities are increasingly finding new ways to increase revenue for the general fund and athletic departments. (The whiskey, I should note, is a deliciously smooth Irish whiskey.) 

But the Fighting Irish whiskey is just the latest push into a growing trend — one that started several years ago — of alcohol brands slapping collegiate logos on products. I once reported on this, highlighting the brands’ endeavors to find new audiences amid a stagnating market; audiences they largely suggest are the school’s large alumni networks.

“It’s all about engagement,” says Steve Steinbacher, a founder of Cabarrus Brewing in Concord, N.C., told Joshua Bernstein for a 2022 VinePair article.  “How do you engage your alumni and fan base beyond just going to the game?”

Just look at these partnerships (and more!) I’ve found researching the past several days: 

• Alabama: Ala Yea Vodka (Foundry Distilling)

• Boise State: Horseshoe Golden Ale (Western Collective)

• East Carolina: Pirate’s Brew (R&D Brewing)

• Florida State: Legacy Lager (Oyster City Brewing)

• Indiana: Hoosier Gameday Lager (Upland Brewing)

• LSU: Bayou Bengal (Tin Roof Brewing)

• New Mexico State: Pistol Pete’s 1888 (Bosque Brewing)

• Nevada: University of Nevada 150th Anniversary Limited Edition (Frey Ranch)

• Penn State: Happy Valley Vodka (Boyd & Blair Potato Vodka)

• Penn State: State Light (New Trail Brewing)

• USC: Fight On! Pale (Stone Brewing)

• Vanderbilt: Conquer & Prevail Ale (Jackalope Brewing)

The partners are small and large. It also goes up to the biggest; Anheuser Busch just announced branded Bud Light cans for 26 schools.

In Michigan, the Division I schools appear to have avoided the direct-branded products. However, Founders Brewing did just become the official beer company of the University of Michigan. (Down in Ohio, the apt-named Buckeye Vodka distillery partnered with Ohio State University in a similar capacity just this week.) 

For small schools, Marquette’s Blackrocks Brewery (one of my favorites!) has partnered with Northern Michigan University to brew Wildcat Gold, a 4.8% gold lager. 

In my very own Grand Rapids, my friends at Long Road Distillers partnered with Grand Valley State University to make Lake + Valley Lemonade, with a percentage of the sales going directly to the university’s general fund.

Most of these branded container partnerships are actually for the schools’ Name, Image, and Likeness collectives to help raise money for the school’s athletes. 

According to NIL Daily, a Sports Illustrated site, the first two months of sales for Iowa’s Swarm Golden Ale from Exile Brewing raised $60,000. But as NIL Daily notes, these partnerships often develop through loopholes around rules to separate the booze brands from the schools and athletes.

Frey Ranch, who we profiled earlier this year, just released the University of Nevada 150th Anniversary Limited Edition, a bourbon with a slick Nevada blue label. The distillery sends 10% of proceeds to the Nevada NIL collective.

However, the sometimes strict NIL legislation is not stopping partnerships that ultimately pay collegiate athletes. Not all of them are for athletics and benefit the school’s bottom line, like the Long Road-Grand Valley deal.

The first example I remember writing about was a partnership between New Belgium Brewing and Colorado State University, both based in Fort Collins, Colorado, for Old Aggie. This was before the NIL situation existed. 

Then New Belgium also brewed a beer, Old Tuffy, for NC State University as the company’s East Coast facility is in North Carolina. It seemed like a nice partnership to help expand a brewery’s audience and raise money for scholarships. (Interestingly, the partnership ended this week, and NC State said it would soon announce a new partner.)

More recently, in my day job, we covered first the rise of sports betting partnerships at schools and then the ensuing backlash — at least in part because of the huge numbers of minors on campus — and the ultimate cancellation of most of those partnerships, including one between Caesars Sportsbook and Michigan State University.

Sports betting is part of the gambling industry, one of the most highly regulated sectors in the U.S. That regulation is one of the main reasons proponents argue for legalization to better protect consumers.

While alcohol is also one of those sin industries and similarly sees plenty of regulation, it appears these partnerships are going unchecked. The same argument against the sportsbook and college partnerships (concern for minors on campus) could easily be used for the booze deals — in most states, sports betting is for 21-and-up, you, know, the drinking age.

Perhaps it’s because sports betting is fairly new, still semi-taboo and the industry is still figuring itself out in a lot of ways.

But we’re at a point where 80% of Power Five schools sell alcohol at their football games. Drinking is a part of college football, and the greater college experience, for a huge number of people. The 2022 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found 49% of full-time college students aged 18-22 drank alcohol, and 28.9% engaged in binge drinking the previous month.

These partnerships certainly are part of the ever-increasing commercialization of universities. Some straight “official beer of” licensing deals exist, and those are like other advertisements one might see at any stadium or venue and not all that eye-catching. But you’re telling me 19-year-old Pat wouldn’t really want to drink out of a can with Gruff Sparty on it?!

Throwing the school logo and incorporating the mascot or nickname on the label throws an extra layer that could prove problematic. 

“Studies have consistently found that the more exposure students have to alcohol marketing, the more likely they are to start drinking,” David Jernigan, director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Johns Hopkins University told USA Today in 2017. “This is further embedding and normalizing alcohol use on college campuses, in college populations.”

Interestingly enough, the non-alcoholic giant Athletic Brewing (the newsletter’s feature!) partnered with Columbia University to be its official non-alcoholic beer partner and began partnering with collegiate athletes in 2021. The partnerships have included now-starting NFL quarterbacks CJ Stroud and Caleb Williams and running back Bijan Robinson.

I’m not writing this to advocate for these partnerships or the prohibition of them, more or less just airing out the thoughts in my head about the situation. Remember, at one point in time, cigarette ads were everywhere.

There are plenty of arguments to be made that put alcohol in the same boat as tobacco, something it feels silly as a booze writer to type.

But then! A lot of colleges now offer brewing programs…

What do you think?

Photo by Nik Shuliahin 💛💙 on Unsplash

Literary Libations

Hi sweet readers! This is Alyssa with your weekly dose of reading and drinking inspiration. I love to hear from you who have read or are reading books profiled in this newsletter! Please continue to do so by leaving a comment on this post.

My fellow Book of the Month subscribers - have you noticed how much the platform has leveled up the selections in recent months?! Each month when I log on to make a new pick, I see a book I already had added to my TBR list. The Wedding People by Alison Espach fit this bill! Taking place inside a beautiful inn in Newport, Rhode Island, Phoebe visits for one final trip before the end of her life while bride Lila won’t let anything get in the way of her picture-perfect wedding weekend. The book is equal parts funny and tender. I’m pairing it with a German chocolate wine, the beverage that Phoebe and Lila bonded over upon meeting. Pour yourself a glass of Mack & Schuhle’s wine and get sipping!

Reads of the week

Sometimes, there’s nothing like a great hamburger. What constitutes a great burger, however, varies greatly! The NY Times dives into 11 different hamburger styles across the U.S. in a gorgeous feature.

Last year, one of my best friends asked if I wanted to go to the Gaslight Anthem show with him. It’s one of those bands I didn’t realize I knew so many of their songs! Anyway, it was a cool show and now they’ve made a beer. (Inside Hook)

Pappy Van Winkle is one of the most sought-after whiskies in the world, and it is tasty. But this guy decided it’d be better in Jell-O shots, which seems like a curious decision. (For a fun book, check out Pappyland by Wright Thompson, one of the great sportswriters of our generation.)

This is one of the stranger stories I’ve read in a while (WaPo): Namibia is set to butcher a ton of animals—elephants, hippos, zebras, and more—to help overcome a drought. It sounds kind of crazy at first, but it does make sense.

What we’re drinking

We received a shipment of Dirty Water the other day. Not exactly the most appetizing name, but ultimately a clean, crisp seltzer in both design and taste. It’s currently just in the New York market and available for DTC in 45 states, but “the light beer of seltzer” should be expanding its retail footprint soon.

We stopped into Pursuit of Happiness here in Grand Rapids the other night, a fun little spot that focuses on champagne and cocktails - champagne cocktails. Having just had dinner, I wanted something a little dessert-y. So I asked the bartender for a Godfather and she did a marvelous job mixing it up.

• 2 parts Bourbon of choice

• 1 part Amaretto

• Mix in a rocks glass with big cube. Optional to garnish with a cherry!