Baseball Australia becomes first sport to join the End Alcohol Advertising in Sport campaign

With mounting sentiment backing an end to alcohol advertising around sport, Baseball Australia has announced that it will no longer accept alcohol advertising or sponsorship at its national and junior levels.

Becoming the first sport to join the End Alcohol Advertising in Sport campaign, Baseball Australia Chief Executive, Cam Vale today advised that alcohol branding "just doesn't make sense for us as a position moving forward".

"It's a big issue I think for all sports to be considering.

"We're all promoting to families, and particularly to junior participants, and we all largely live in a very high-performance environment.

"Alcohol branding, for our industry, doesn't make sense and isn't a natural fit."

While Baseball Australia has reportedly already turned down a lucrative sponsorship deal with an international alcohol company, the decision doesn't apply to the eight privately-owned clubs in the domestic league.

Six of these eight teams have alcohol sponsors, and alcohol is still freely sold at domestic games.

Explaining this, Vale added “the individual teams are all privately owned, so they're independent of (Baseball Australia) when it comes to commercial arrangements.

"It's their choice to choose the sponsors that they agree to have on board."

Melbourne Aces Chief Executives Justin Huber said he was supportive of the move at the national level, but was also satisfied club revenue wouldn't be impacted, noting drinks were a "significant" portion of their income.

Huber advised “you only have four revenue streams available to clubs: sponsorship, tickets, merchandise and concessions.

"If the decision was made to eliminate alcohol ... you would have to address that."

Launched last year and backed by health and religious groups, the creation of the End Alcohol Advertising in Sport campaign, follows a 2018 study that found AFL and NRL fans were bombarded with alcohol advertising during last year's final series.

The research - by Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE) - found alcohol advertising appeared an average of seven times every 10 minutes for AFL viewers, and 29 times every 10 minutes for NRL viewers during the 2018 grand finals.

FARE Chief Executive and End Alcohol Advertising in Sport spokesman Michael Thorn lauded Baseball Australia's decision and said he wished other codes would follow suit.

Thorn stated "Baseball Australia have today shown leadership that is sadly lacking in too many of our national sporting codes.

"Sport can and should be a powerful force for good.

"Rather than simply condemning player transgressions, sporting codes must show leadership, and that starts with walking away from alcohol advertising dollars, as Baseball Australia is doing."

Image: Baseball Australia shows its support for the End Alcohol Advertising in Sport campaign. Courtesy of Baseball Australia.