So I watched a NASCAR race yesterday and the guy driving a car sponsored by Budweiser won the race. When he pulled into victory lane(?) he was handed a can of Budweiser and he immediately began chugging it.
Would they really give him a beer to chug on live TV?
Or was it something non-alcoholic like water or “near beer” in a normal beer can used just for promotional reasons?
You never can tell with Dale Earnhardt, Jr. He’s a partier… spends race weekends drinking beer and playing video games with his buddies, has a bar in his basement…
If they’re going to give him ANYTHING in a beer can, why not have it be beer? To the viewing audience it looks like they gave him a beer to chug on live tv, so whether it really is beer in the can or not doesn’t seem to matter much.
FWIW it IS beer in the cans they shake up and dump on him. I’d assume it’s beer in the can he’s drinking from, too. I could be wrong, though.
As hot as the interiors of those cars get, and as dehydrated as the drivers get, one could have probably handed him a can of warm cat pee and he would have chugged it.
Oh, wait, they gave him a Bud. Same difference.
Sorry.
What is the big deal? They did not give him joint to smoke. He is 21 and beer is legal in this country…only problem is that it was Budweiser…yuck
Jesus…his SPONSOR is Budweiser, I do believe he’d be looking for another one if he were to suck down a Pepsi, don’t you? I also agree with the others, Bud SUCKS.
People drink beer all the time on TV (Cheers, The Man Show, The Drew Carey Show, etc.) This case might be a little different if only that giving the driver of an automobile an alcoholic beverage isn’t really the “drink responsibly” message Anheuser-Busch says they want. Even if it’s only taking one swig of weak beer in a parked car, it still looks bad to America’s impressionable youth. Course, with Bud logos slathered everywhere, and a race series named after a cigarette, a few brewskis after a hard day’s driving doesn’t seem like a big deal to me.
I don’t know, it just seemed kinda - wrong. I’ve seen the “spray the beer around” celebration but this was the first time I had seen an athelete drinking alcohol in a public setting.
Well, I daresay that Dale Jr’s post-race quaff was only about .00000000000000001% of all the beer drunk at the track that day.
But I understand xixor. What kind of uproar would ensue if Barry Bonds cracked a brewski on camera every time he hit one out of the park?
Barry Bonds isn’t playing baseball on Budweiser’s tab.
Was he still behind the wheel of the car when he began drinking the beer? If so, I think it was a teensy bit inappropriate. If he had gotten out, no biggie.
who cares if he was under the wheel…It was a BEER.
The official beer of Major League Baseball? He most certainly is! Anyone who’s seen the scoreboard at Pac Bell park has seen the massive Budweiser billboard right above it. (Not to mention the Bud Light sign in center field.)
Dale Jr. usually slugs a Bud in victory lane. It is one of the things Bud likes about him 8-).
Anhueser-Busch is one of the more liberal sponsors in NASCAR. Some sponsors are very restrictive on what they will let “their” drivers say and do, others are more open. A-B chose Dale, Jr. precisely because he is Bud-slugging, party-going, sideburns and goatee, backwards hat wearing, Playboy interview kinda guy. They are trying to appeal to a younger demographic and convince them that drinking Bud is cool, despite the taste 8-0.
Contrast this to Miller (owned, oddly enough, by a tobacco company), who sponsors the #2 car under the Miller Lite brand. They replace the “Lite” logo with the word “Rusty” on all the small car replicas and kid’s t-shirts and hats. Rusty rarely drinks beer in victory lane, but is often photographed holding a can of sponsor-swill in the garage area after a race. Whenever he is quoted as saying he is going to go party, there is usually a quick addition by him that he is not going to drive.
In either case, though, beer-sponsored drivers know they are on a real hot seat regarding getting a single DUI, and that it could cost them their jobs and/or careers. It is understood by the fans that a winning driver is generally not going to personally drive or fly a vehicle again until the next day.
Bud does that too. They kind of have to. If it has the beer logo on it it’s technically illegal to sell to people under 21.
Yeah, that’s probably why it bothered me. He was still sitting in the driver’s seat when he started chugging.
Does there remain a General Question here?
Yes, I think a general question might remain. Part of xixor’s question appears to rely on the assumption that such a thing is somehow proscribed by broadcast regulations.
Was it once the case that you couldn’t drink beer on television? I seem to recall that Norm couldn’t actually drink a beer on screen while onscreen for a couple of seasons…
[QUOTE]
drink a beer on screen while onscreenQUOTE]
Never mind.
Never mind.
You can drink beer on TV, but strangely, you cannot do so in a beer commercial…
Athletes are often seen drinking celebratory suds or champagne after winning a big game, World Series, etc. I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Hadn’t the man just finished driving 500 miles or whatever? It’s not like he was going out driving again, so what’s wrong with his enjoying a beer?