MillerCoors LLC, one-half of the Big Beer Duopoly and the second largest brewer in the U.S., recently signed a $10 million sponsorship deal with 23 nationally recognized universities including Arizona State, California, Clemson, Colorado, Penn State, and Washington. These sponsorships authorize the use of the MillerCoors brand along with school marks on television, radio, print, and online marketing, as well as on point-of-sale material. Meanwhile, MillerCoors reports that an undetermined portion of the advertising will be used to promote the company’s branded “broader responsibility platform."

If this sounds like MillerCoors is carrying out its widespread college-oriented marketing under the guise of “responsible drinking," that’s because it is. The company seeks to promote its brand (hence, its products) at the college level, where a large proportion of students are not even the minimum legal drinking age. In a recent study, Miller was reported as the eighth most preferred alcohol brand for underage females and the fifth most preferred for underage males. Large-scale marketing campaigns like this one increase loyalty to, and positive perceptions of, alcohol brands. In one such self-congratulatory college-oriented campaign, Miller Coors goes so far as to state that Coors Light "Makes Dreams Come True." And how do they do that, you ask? Simple: by sending fans to college football games. No, not to college...to college football games.

MillerCoors, while one of the biggest, is by no means the only alcohol producer taking advantage of college and university branding opportunities. Like a more expensive version of Anheuser-Busch InBev's "fan cans" from years past, Louisiana State University and the University of California at Davis recently partnered with local breweries to create and promote beer branded with their school. Tin Roof Brewing Company will produce an LSU-branded beer in time for football season, while Sudwerk Restaurant and Brewery is brewing and promoting “Aggie Lager" for UC Davis, which has licensed the use of its name and athletics trademark to the brewer. University of Michigan and Boston College also have beer branding agreements in the making.

University administrators say that these licensing, branding, and alcohol sales agreements would provide educational benefits to their students. In reality, college administrators are selling their students' brand loyalty and positive regard for the alcohol industry. Meanwhile, dangerous amounts of alcohol-related harm persist and threaten student safety, health, and academic success in college communities.

The alcohol industry argues that it is helping to promote "responsible" drinking behaviors on college campuses, but its public relations tactics are intended to fuel consumption and profits. It’s time for alcohol producers to stop this charade and quit throwing money at schools to promote their brands while engaging in feel-good industry PR poorly dressed up as "prevention." It's also time for universities to refuse industry funding for promotional efforts that inevitably contribute to alcohol-related harm for their students.

We’ve all heard the recent media attention to the explosion of violence among spectators at professional sporting games: the beat-down at Dodger stadium that left a Giants fan in a coma, the shootings in Candlestick Park after a Niners game, and hundreds of fights in the stands. What media outlets consistently gloss over is the critical role that alcohol plays in the spectator violence. Then, Gregg Doyel’s recent op-ed called out the elephant in the room. Doyel poignantly points out the painful truth that the industry hopes the fans and media overlook: It isn’t “the Raiders vs. the 49ers” or “the Nortenos vs. the Surenos” that leads to the bloodspill. It is “Budweiser vs. the bloodstream…And Budweiser, or whatever those animals are guzzling, wins every time.” Alcohol Justice also commented on this problem in a USA Today article earlier this year. Read more of Doyel's analysis here.