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Olympics

Labatt Says Its Hockey-Themed Budweiser Campaign Is Not Ambush Marketing

The COC this week reportedly "raised concerns that the Budweiser Red Light campaign suggests an association between the Olympic movement and the beer made by Labatt Brewing Co. Ltd., which is not an Olympic sponsor," according to Ashante Infantry of the TORONTO STAR. The Red Light promotion debuted on Super Bowl Sunday with "an ad depicting hockey fans at a Moscow bar watching a game in which Team Canada triumphs over Russia." Featuring a "roving blimp", which arrives in Toronto today, the commercial’s tag line "'Let the goals begin' could be read as a play on 'Let the Games begin.'" Labatt Marketing Dir Kyle Norrington in an e-mail wrote, "We have gone out of our way to make it clear that Budweiser Red Lights are not related to any one league or event." Infantry notes the COC’s official beer sponsor is Molson Coors Brewing Co., which is "getting Olympic traction with its beer fridge campaign." Molson Coors Senior Manager of Corporate Affairs Forest Kenney said that the brewer "isn’t going to be ruffled by a competitor’s 'noise,'" but added that some Canadians “might be surprised to learn that Labatt’s parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev sponsors American Olympians." Kenney said, "If you were to interview people on the street and ask them if they were going to support the brand that’s actually giving money back to the COC or the one that’s giving money to the U.S. Olympic Committee, it’s going to make a really easy choice for them." He added, "We don’t try and build our brands on the back of someone else" (TORONTO STAR, 2/13).

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

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