Unhealthy histories: sports and addictive sponsorship

Greenwood, Anna; Mold, Alex; Wardle, Heather

Abstract

Professional sport has been criticised for its role as a vehicle to market addictive products or services. Despite the harmful health effects on society, football audiences are inured to seeing sponsors of such products not only on pitch-side hoardings and shirts, but also embedded in television rights, competition names, prematch build-up, corporate hospitality, and social media. Tobacco's successful movement into sports sponsorship established the template on which other addictive sponsors, notably the alcohol and gambling industries, built their strategies. The integration of sports and addictive commodities highlights strategies to influence consumption by those within the unhealthy commodities industry. Using the UK as a case study, we revisit the evolution of these relationships to provide critical insight into these processes.

Citation

Greenwood, A., Mold, A., & Wardle, H. (2023). Unhealthy histories: sports and addictive sponsorship. Lancet, 401(10370), 18-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736%2822%2902579-X

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 19, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Jan 7, 2023
• Publication Date: Jan 7, 2023
• Deposit Date: Jan 6, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 8, 2023
• Journal: The Lancet
• Print ISSN: 0140-6736
• Electronic ISSN: 1474-547X
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 401
• Issue: 10370
• Pages: 18-19
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736%2822%2902579-X
• Keywords: General Medicine
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/15717762
• Publisher URL: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)02579-X/fulltext