The negativity and cynicism about intercollegiate athletics in this feature would have startled earlier generations of college sports rooters, yet current fans cheer as loudly for their teams as their predecessors did, mainly illustrating the power of doublethink.
In the final decades of the twentieth century, however, not all college sports fans moved to doublethink: indeed, this attitude marked a generational divide among college sports enthusiasts, younger fans adopting it much more readily than their elders. College students and young alumni accepted corruption as the norm while embracing their favorite teams and athletes, but older fans, particularly those over fifty, tended to believe in the NCAA’s student-athlete ideal as portrayed in the association’s halftime TV clips (younger fans remarked that these promos occurred at a time when most viewers were not watching TV but opening refrigerators or flushing toilets).
Marketing surveys charted the generational split. In the early 1990s, one study reported that “fans aged 18–31 are much more tolerant … than their elders” about off-the-field problems, including “the commercialization in sports.” For example, a majority of all older fans believed that “beers shouldn’t be allowed as sponsors” of sports events, whereas almost two-thirds of young fans had no problem with brewery or even cigarette sponsorship (also opposed by older fans). In the twenty-first century, surveys would probably reveal a greater spread in the numbers, with youthful indifference and cynicism increasing every year.
The split between doublethink and single-minded fans also varied somewhat from region to region and from school to school. Regardless of their age, many supporters of athletic programs that openly cheated and got caught justified the dishonesty with the “everyone does it” line; this attitude never prevented these fans from treating their corrupt coaches and athletes as traditional sports heroes, especially if they won. Doublethink prevailed in such conferences as the SEC, Big East, and Pac-10; on the other hand, universities adhering more closely to the NCAA rules kept and attracted fans of all ages who believed in the student-athlete ideals and wanted their schools to observe them, e.g., Penn State, with Joe Paterno (JoPa) heading its football program. (ESPN often treated JoPa reverently, but in 1997, in a radio ad campaign promoting its college football coverage, two announcers mocked Paterno’s nonconference “easy schedules,” predicting that West Chester State of Pennsylvania would play next year in Happy Valley!)
Just as doublethink evolved out of earlier, more unified attitudes about college sports, beer-and-circus also connected to various traditions, especially the collegiate fun and games surrounding intercollegiate athletics. Indeed, without such rich collegiate ground to plow, well fertilized by the Animal House mentality of the 1980s, companies like Miller Brewing could not have so easily instituted corporate beer-and-circus. The next chapter examines this phenomenon.
4
CORPORATE BEER-AND-CIRCUS
From the founding of intercollegiate athletics in the nineteenth century, drinking often accompanied college sports events, particularly football games. As sociologists Clark and Trow indicated, this revelry formed an important part of the collegiate subculture. However, contrary to Animal House, in the pre-Vietnam War era depicted in the film, collegians mainly partied on the weekends and rarely consumed the massive quantities of alcohol downed by Bluto and his fellow Deltas.
In the 1980s, beer-and-circus escalated, in large part because of marketing strategies by the major brewing companies. The college guidebooks for prospective students paralleled this escalation when they began to emphasize the collegiate subculture on university campuses, and to downplay the educational aspects of a school. The guidebooks often provided detailed descriptions of life as a college sports fan at a particular university, and tied this to the party scene.
If the prospect of cheering the Razorbacks at football games with chants of “Ooh-Pig-Sooey” doesn’t send anticipatory shivers up and down your spine, don’t even consider attending [the University of Arkansas]. This custom is known as “calling the hogs,” and if you can’t do it with conviction then you probably don’t belong here.
“I’m a true Razorback fan!” gushes a junior. The sentiment is heartfelt and pratically inbred. Arkansas students grow up as Razorback fans and can’t wait to go to college and call the hogs in person. “My family loves the Razorbacks passionately,” a student confided. To love the university—and [its] students surely do—is to love sports and spirit rallies and calling the hogs.
—Lisa Birnbach’s New & Improved College Book
Of all mass market college guidebooks in the 1980s and early 1990s, Lisa Birnbach aimed hers most directly at prospective college students, informing them in detail about extracurricular life and the “social scene” at different schools. She mentioned the educational aspects of universities—but mainly in such categories as “Most Popular ‘Blow-Off’ Courses,” and numerical student ratings of the quality of education at their institutions: at the University of Arkansas, students rated “overall academic excellence” as 6.5 (out of 10), and “overall interest in learning” exhibited by students as 5.75. (In contrast, the next school in her book, Cal Tech, received student ratings of 10 and 9.6 in these categories but, predictably, low ratings for “leisure opportunities” and social life. Birnbach’s ratings, although not scientific, did indicate the way students in her extensive polling regarded different aspects of their universities.)
Of much greater interest to her readers than the academic ratings were such observations as: “long known as a party school,” at the University of Arkansas, “liquor flows fast and steady on and off campus, and despite a state ordinance against underage drinking, no one lacks for opportunities to imbibe.” Birnbach frequently interspersed her commentary with quotes from students: an Arkansas undergrad stated, “‘Many people [here] party and party often,’” and another claimed, “‘The worst thing about the school is sometimes there are too many parties,’” and it’s hard to choose which ones to attend. Birnbach’s guidebook also discussed the role of Greek organizations on each campus. At Arkansas, about 20 percent of undergraduates belonged to them, but “they infiltrate everything,” setting a collegiate tone for the university.
Obviously, college sports, partying, and Greek organizations had existed for many generations at the University of Arkansas before Lisa Birnbach visited the campus; however, the main difference between the old fun and games and the 1980s rise of beer-and-circus was the corporate nature of the latter. In this decade, national brewers greatly increased their advertising in the campus newspaper, the Arkansas Traveler, and in the local/ regional paper, the Northwest Arkansas Times, as did local beer distributors and liquor stores. Additionally, the local outlets, aided by the national brands, promoted their products much more aggressively than ever before with a plethora of marketing gimmicks, including below-cost specials and paraphernalia giveaways. Moreover, the University of Arkansas, also becoming more corporate, sanctioned beer-and-circus in various ways, e.g., allowing its alumni association and athletic department to escalate such alcohol-drenched events as the tailgate barbecues and parties before and after football games and, with the rise in the rankings of the Razorback basketball team, before and after b-ball contests.
The Arkansas administration also tried to link the school with the national sports media, encouraging its athletic department to court the national networks in every possible way, for example, agreeing to start contests at whatever hour they requested, no matter how inconvenient to students and other fans. The school also ended its historic association with the Southwest Conference and moved to the SEC, mainly for the increased TV coverage and payouts (throughout this period, the athletic department consistently lost money).
However, to be fair to the University of Arkansas, in the 1980s its students were not the only marketing target of the beer and liquor companies, but merely part of an immense and extremely well-funded national campaign (see below). Also its administrators and athletic department personnel were not
alone in chasing TV dollars, nor singular in switching conferences.
For the Razorbacks, departing the Southwest Conference (which eventually folded) meant ending such historic annual games as the contest against the University of Texas at Austin. Older Arkansas fans hated this move—the game was approaching its centenary—but the younger generation considered the SEC and the increased national TV coverage “cool,” and then everyone drank more beer and called more hogs. Finally, in this period and afterward, like many schools, the University of Arkansas claimed to be trying to improve its academic standing. But it spent much more proportionally on its research and graduate school facilities than it did on general undergraduate education.
The rise of corporate universities and corporate beer-and-circus in the 1980s was not confined to large public institutions like the University of Arkansas. Other schools, including some private ones in other parts of the country and at other places on the economic scale, underwent similar transitions. But all of these schools possessed a number of the same characteristics: they had large and influential collegiate subcultures, flourishing intercollegiate athletic departments, well-earned reputations as party schools, and administrators who emphasized research and graduate programs over undergraduate education ones. The University of Southern California provided a good example of this phenomenon, and also illustrated the influence of the national media on student attitudes, as opposed to campus and local media in college towns like Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Indisputably a sports school, or to put it less politely, a “jock” school, USC can (and does) boast that it has won more NCAA team championships … and produced more Olympic athletes than any other university … . So pronounced is the emphasis on athletics that students have sneered that they attend “a football team with a classroom tucked in the bottom of it.”
—Lisa Birnbach’s New & Improved College Book
Like the University of Arkansas, the academic aspects of USC did not impress Lisa Birnbach and her investigators. Her guidebook stated: “‘You can slide by here in the easiest classes like at a junior college,’ students have said. But for more serious students—and people swear they do exist [here]—USC does have extensive options.” The highly selective USC Film School was supposed to be one option, although the “Most Popular Mic’ Course” on campus was Exploring Culture Through Film (for each school, Birnbach inserted the local slang term for an easy course, here—appropriate, considering its movie origins—“Mic” for “Mickey Mouse”).
Equally revealing about USC were such comments as, “If you’re looking for a party, you can always find one, [including] Monday through Thursday,” and one of the best party weekends of the year occurs when “three to four thousand [USC] students fly or drive to San Francisco” for the USC at Berkeley or the USC at Stanford football game (these take place in alternate years). Birnbach also noted that “Greeks are the dominant social force on campus and represent 22 percent of the undergraduate student body.”
In the history of collegiate life, USC has long played a central role, serving as the inspiration for, as well as the site of, many Hollywood films depicting carefree collegians and the excitement of college sports. In the 1980s, the school also provided the location, and some of its students worked as extras, for a number of beer commercials for national brands. In addition, several of the marketing agencies that held brewery and liquor accounts tested their campaign ideas on USC students. Posters of Budweiser’s Spuds Mackenzie, the most popular “party animal” of the decade, hung on walls of housing units at USC long before they arrived in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
In the last 10 years [1979 to 1989] as the campaign to protect young people from the perils of alcohol abuse has intensified, so has the alcoholic beverage industry’s efforts to hawk its wares to a youthful market. The nation’s beer, wine, and liquor producers spent more than $1.3 billion in 1987 to advertise their products. Beer advertising alone—totaling $847 million—has more than doubled since 1980 with the push for a younger drinking audience.
—Diane Alters, Boston Globe reporter
In comprehensive market surveys in the 1980s, beer, wine, and liquor companies determined that 10 percent of the U.S. population bought almost 60 percent of their products, and that the largest segment of purchasers were young men. Moreover, demographers indicated that, with baby boomers aging and drinking less, the alcoholic beverage industry faced a shrinking market. As a result, as one industry expert stated, in the 1980s the national companies saw “themselves in a life-and-death battle to maintain strong sales,” and felt much more threatened by demographic trends than by M.A.D.D. and other antialcohol groups.
The industry’s marketing research also ascertained that males between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four not only represented a huge percentage of current profits but also promised future sales. During their college-age years, drinkers developed brand loyalty and tended to stay with their favorites for many years. Thus, alcohol producers decided to spend a disproportionate amount of their advertising budgets on campaigns aimed at college-age drinkers and, more specifically, sports fans. The goal was to turn the major characteristic of college sports fans—personal loyalty to their teams—into a similar allegiance to their favorite alcohol brands.
Miller Beer began the 1980s with a highly successful campaign featuring famous athletes arguing about whether they loved Miller Lite because it “tastes great” or was “less filling.” Even though the athletes were past their college and professional playing days, the ads appealed to college students, so much so that some of the retired jocks became campus celebrities. In 1985, the students at Michigan State University invited one of the Miller Lite athletes, Bubba Smith (an outstanding Spartan lineman in the 1960s, and then a NFL All-Star) to be Grand Marshall in the school’s Homecoming Parade. Smith was upset by what occurred: “I thought everyone was very fired up” with school spirit as the parade went down the street. “All of a sudden, one side of the street started yelling, ‘Tastes great,’ and the other side would answer, ‘Less filling.’ It just totally freaked me out. Then when I went to the bonfire [pep rally], they [the students] were just completely drunk out of their heads.” As a result, Smith refused to do any more Miller Lite commercials. Bubba Smith’s stand against excessive campus drinking was unusual; Miller offered no comment on Smith’s resignation and simply hired another well-known athlete to replace him.
Miller started the 1980s as the second-largest brewer in the United States, and, with its jock celebrity ads, it began closing the gap on college campuses between its Miller Lite brand and its main competitor, Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light. However, an advertising agency with the Bud Light account conceived of Spuds Mackenzie, and subsequently Bud more than kept its lead.
Make Way for Spuds Mackenzie
The dog, dubbed The Original Party Animal by his employer, Bud Light beer, was introduced to national television during the fourth quarter of this year’s Super Bowl … . Since that commercial, his popularity has soared nationally and spawned a growth industry of T-shirts and other Spuds paraphernalia. Posters of the Ayatollah Partyollah, in which he often appears surrounded by beautiful young women, are now the best-selling pin-ups in the country.
—Beth Ann Krier, Los Angeles Times reporter
Many observers, including Ms. Krier, described Spuds as resembling John Belushi, and Spuds’s title as “The Original Party Animal” clearly referenced that actor’s famous movie role in Animal House. In addition, Spuds’s name echoed a popular term for beer, suds; and MacKenzie repeated the name of a successful 1980s comedy team—the MacKenzie brothers, two Canadians who loved drinking beer.
Spuds’s commercial at the 1987 Super Bowl was merely his national debut; in fact, he had first appeared in 1983 in test market ads in Chicago and Los Angeles aimed at college beer drinkers, mainly those at Northwestern University, USC, and UCLA. Spuds tested wonderfully, and his fame spread, one writer noting that “he quickly became a cult figure on college campuses,” with pos
ters of him—given out for free by nearby liquor stores—soon plastered on student bedroom walls.
Despite his odd shape and size, Spuds loved sports, and many commercials featured him engaged in athletic activities. Bud Light aired the ads before and during college sports events and, in 1988, in conjunction with the Winter and Summer Olympics. Spuds also made live appearances at various athletic events, including college football and basketball games, and minor league baseball contests. Most of all, Spuds sold tons of beer for his employer, Anheuser-Busch, keeping Bud Light ahead of its rivals, Miller Lite and Coors Light.
Part of Spuds’s success resulted from the fact that women liked him almost as much as men did. One researcher commented that Spuds’s “crossover appeal [was] unusual for beer ads … but not unwelcome” because brewers had discovered that, in the 1980s, females, particularly college women, had started to consume much more beer than ever before. Women found Spuds “cute, cuddly, adorable, fun to watch,” and thus he became the perfect beer marketer, so much so that Budweiser produced thirty-foot inflatable replicas of Spuds for college sports games and campus events, and also licensed his image to T-shirt, toy, and other manufacturers. After the 1987 Super Bowl ad, Spuds became a national craze and, inevitably, drew criticism from M.A.D.D. and officials like Surgeon General C. Everett Koop.
Spuds was attacked at congressional hearings, and Miller Beer tried to counter Spuds with parody ads featuring clay figure animals announcing, “Three out of four party animals prefer the taste of Miller Lite.” Coors Light, always more conservative than its competitors, countered Spuds with such campaigns as a 1990 “Special Edition Coors Light Beer Can, Commemorating the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers’ Championship Football Season.” Then, in the early 1990s, Budweiser decided to retire Spuds gracefully, a vice president of brand management for Anheuser-Busch commenting, “We’ve always prided ourselves on getting out of an [advertising] idea before people are tired of it.”
Beer and Circus Page 7