NFL fans know that stadium beers are no bargain, but there’s a chance that recent acquisitions can make them a better bad deal.
Back in 2009, with the U.S. in the depths of a recession, the average cost of the cheapest beer at a National Football League stadium was $6.87, according to Team Marketing Report. By last year, it had climbed to $7.42, but the average size of that serving decreased from 18 ounces to 16. That has NFL fans paying 46 cents per ounce on average, compared with 38 cents in 2009, or 3 cents an ounce greater than the rate of inflation during that span.
The price on the higher end of those offerings has changed dramatically as well. In 2009, the St. Louis Rams — now known as the Los Angeles Rams after their hasty offseason return to the market the team originally abandoned in 1995 — offered the most expensive beer at $8.75. Last season, the Oakland Raiders — who failed in their attempt to flee to Los Angeles with the San Diego Chargers and are now eyeballing property in Las Vegas — had the audacity to charge a league-high $10.75 for their lowest-priced beer.
Craft beer seemed more than willing to forgo the expense of sports partnerships and large-scale placement deals with airports, airlines and the like ... until it wasn’t.
Yet there’s been a fundamental shift among the brewers supplying that beer during that span, and it’s made both fans and competitors take notice. In 2011, Anheuser-Busch InBev BUD, -2.06% paid $1.2 billion to secure the NFL’s official beer sponsorship for its Budweiser brand and to wrest it away from Molson Coors’ Coors Light. That same year, Anheuser-Busch purchased Chicago-based Goose Island Brewing Co. for $38.8 million.
That set off a string of craft beer purchases including Patchogue, N.Y.-based Blue Point, Seattle-based Elysian and Golden Road of Los Angeles. Not to be outdone, Molson Coors countered by picking up San Diego’s Saint Archer last year and going on a buying spree in 2016 that included Georgia’s Terrapin, Oregon’s Hop Valley and Texas’ Revolver.
What should any of that matter to football fans? Well, craft beer has often struggled in its relationship with major sports — excelling with Major League Soccer, forging some bonds with Major League Baseball and often ignoring the National Football League altogether. While the latter can be somewhat cost-prohibitive, those same brewers have spurned the league at their own peril.
The Washington, D.C.-based Beer Institute industry lobbying group recently held its annual meeting in Portland, Ore., which gave me an opportunity to talk to some of the folks from both Molson Coors’ MillerCoors division and Anheuser-Busch InBev. As MillerCoors clarified, their company is still the exclusive beer partner of the Minnesota Vikings, Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys. That means that while Hinterland Brewery and its Packerland Pilsner can set up shop right outside Lambeau Field in 2017, the offerings inside from concessionaire Delaware North will still be dominated by Miller Lite and Leinenkugel’s.
Anheuser-Busch InBev, meanwhile, extended its league sponsorship last year for $1.5 billion. That takes the deal through 2022 and pretty much ensures ABI exclusive rights to Super Bowl ad time that it’s had since 1988 and has paid $278 million for since 2006. While MillerCoors notes that it shares sponsorship of 14 teams with Anheuser-Busch InBev, the latter has the right to use all of their logos on packaging. Meanwhile, Anheuser-Busch InBev has exclusive deals with the league’s 14 other teams and is already using them to bring its craft offerings into the fold. When the Craft Brew Alliance’s Redhook — of which Anheuser-Busch InBev owns nearly 32% — brewed its False Start Session IPA for the Seattle Seahawks in 2014, ties to Anheuser-Busch InBev helped get it into CenturyLink Field, along with Longhammer IPA and other offerings.
In Denver, in the shadow of Molson Coors’ headquarters in Golden, Colo., new Anheuser-Busch InBev acquisition Breckenridge is brewing United in Orange Pale Ale specifically for the Broncos and only making it available at Mile High Stadium (we’ll call it what we like now that Sports Authority is out of business) and the brewery’s pubs on game day. Where Bud and Bud Light once had a lock on beer sales at Broncos games, now Breckenridge’s Avalanche Ale and Vanilla Porter are getting a cut.
The folks at Molson Coors say they’d like to see a similar scenario for Granbury, Texas-based Revolver and the nearby Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium in Arlington. However, that deal just closed, and there are a few more moving parts than Molson Coors’ deal with the Cowboys suggests. There’s the small matter of getting Revolver beers to MillerCoors’ Dallas distributor, Andrews Distributing, which then has to get stadium concessionaire Legends Hospitality to place it. That’s not an easy task, but they’re at least steps that Molson Coors and Anheuser-Busch InBev seem willing to make.
Craft beer, for its part, seemed more than willing to forgo the expense of sports partnerships and large-scale placement deals with airports, airlines and the like ... until it wasn’t. Earlier this year, the Brewers Association craft beer industry group bemoaned the state of craft beer selection at sports venues and used photos from a concessions stand at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., to assert that small brewers were being squeezed out by Anheuser-Busch InBev. Never mind that the Nationals changed beer sponsors from MillerCoors to Anheuser-Busch InBev this year — or that the photographed restaurant wasn’t indicative of the District Drafts stands where local beers were actually featured. This large corner of the beer market was now presenting “the illusion of choice.”
It’s funny, because when I first used that term last year to discuss the effects of all craft beer consolidation — not just breweries purchased by Anheuser-Busch InBev or Molson Coors/MillerCoors — it was amid discussion of craft beer’s uncomfortable creep into big-beer territory. Boston Beer Co. SAM, -2.43% which owns the Samuel Adams beer brand, now also owns Angry Orchard cider, Angel City brewing, the Coney Island line of malt beverages, Twisted Tea, Traveler shandies, a Miami brewpub brand, an alcoholic seltzer and a research spinoff in Vermont that cooks up much of the above. Oskar Blues, along with partner Fireman Capital, now owns the Utah Brewers Cooperative (Wasatch and Squatters Pubs), Cigar City and Perrin Brewing. Stone Brewing Co., once the face of craft beer’s renegade ethos, is now spinning off brands, brewing styles it once disdained and slapping its brand on hotels.
Those craft brewers are thinking big, but still playing small-ball when it comes high-profile placement. That’s a shame, since it’s those big-time offerings that are inspiring craft-brewery owners to sell to big brewers in the first place. Goose Island founders Greg and John Hall specifically mentioned Goose Island’s featured spot at Wrigley Field, “and not just at some Beers of the World stand off in a corner,” as one of the key benefits of selling to Anheuser-Busch InBev. Golden Road co-founder Meg Gill, meanwhile, was inspired to make a similar deal after seeing Goose Island IPA on a United Airlines flight. Meanwhile, 26 years into its existence, Breckenridge Brewery is finally selling its beers at Broncos games thanks to Anheuser-Busch InBev.
Craft beer wants to play in big-beer spaces, but doesn’t want to pay big-beer prices for doing so. Unfortunately, if craft has finally decided to abandon the quality-over-quantity argument and play in the big leagues, the NFL doesn’t build its deals on salty beer-geek tears. Unless craft beer’s bigger brewers want to pool their resources and get teams’ and leagues’ attention, the only craft brewers who’ll get consistent tap space on game day are those willing to join the big leagues with Anheuser-Busch InBev, MillerCoors, Heineken or any other partner willing to foot the bill.
Jason Notte is a freelance writer based in Portland, Ore. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Huffington Post and Esquire. Follow him on Twitter @Notteham.
