title: Eat, drink and gamble: marketing messages about 'risky' products in an Australian major sporting series.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To investigate the alcohol, gambling, and unhealthy food marketing strategies during a nationally televised, free to air, sporting series in Australia.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using the Australian National Rugby League 2012 State of Origin three-game series, we conducted a mixed methods content analysis of the frequency, duration, placement and content of advertising strategies, comparing these strategies both within and across the three games.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were a total of 4445 episodes (mean = 1481.67, SD = 336.58), and 233.23 minutes (mean = 77.74, SD = 7.31) of marketing for alcoholic beverages, gambling products and unhealthy foods and non-alcoholic beverages during the 360 minutes of televised coverage of the three State of Origin 2012 games. This included an average per game of 1354 episodes (SD = 368.79) and 66.29 minutes (SD = 7.62) of alcohol marketing; 110.67 episodes (SD = 43.89), and 8.72 minutes (SD = 1.29) of gambling marketing; and 17 episodes (SD = 7.55), and 2.74 minutes (SD = 0.78) of unhealthy food and beverage marketing. Content analysis revealed that there was a considerable embedding of product marketing within the match play, including within match commentary, sporting equipment, and special replays.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Sport is increasingly used as a vehicle for the promotion of range of 'risky consumption' products. This study raises important ethical and health policy questions about the extent and impact of saturation and incidental marketing strategies on health and wellbeing, the transparency of embedded marketing strategies, and how these strategies may influence product consumption.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Health Initiatives, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia. slthomas@uow.edu.au.
authors.forename: Sophie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lindsay
authors.forename: Samantha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.forename: Sophie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lewis
authors.forename: Kate
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Westberg
authors.forename: Rob
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Moodie
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jones
mesh_terms: D000434:Alcoholic Beverages; D001315:Australia; D004032:Diet; D005502:Food; D005538:Football; D005715:Gambling; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D040541:Marketing / Q000379:methods*; D012309:Risk-Taking; D013177:Sports
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