Every AFL club now carries an alcohol sponsor, and so does every NRL club. A new report from the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education reveals the scale of alcohol advertising in sport. It covers the AFL and the NRL, Australia’s two biggest football codes. The same report found gambling sponsors at every NRL club and five AFL clubs. FARE released the findings today, with alcohol still the dominant focus.

Alcohol Sponsorship Becomes the Default

Alcohol sponsorship in sport is now standard across both codes. Brands appear on training kits and matchday jerseys, and line the boundary and stadium screens. Alcohol-linked broadcasters also increased their television deals again this year. The report tracks a newer trend too: alcohol and gambling sponsors are moving into the AFLW and NRLW. These growing competitions now carry the same advertising that has long defined the men’s game.

FARE Calls for Action

FARE CEO Ayla Chorley produced the report. She said it shows how deeply alcohol advertising in sport has embedded itself in family viewing. “Alcohol ads saturate every part of our experience of sport,” she said. Chorley wants regulators to treat community concern as a reason to act. She is calling on the Australian Communications and Media Authority to address the flood of ads on commercial broadcasts. The regulator, she says, must put health and wellbeing first.

Chorley also linked drinking culture in sport to violence against women. She argues that when sport normalises heavy drinking alongside ideas about masculinity and aggression, it reinforces harmful attitudes. Dr Erin Lalor AM of the Alcohol and Drug Foundation raised a similar concern. She said alcohol causes real harm to individuals, families and communities, even as the industry keeps using sport to sell its products. Alcohol advertising shapes how young people see drinking, in her view. That is why she wants to cut their exposure to it.

Alcohol Advertising in Sport Faces a Broadcast Loophole

The report also flags a gap in the broadcast rules. Regulators usually keep alcohol ads off screens during children’s viewing hours, but sport carries an exemption. Broadcasters can run alcohol ads at any time during weekend and holiday coverage. Family audiences, including children, often watch during these exact hours, which exposes thousands of children to alcohol advertising each year.

Commercial broadcasters such as Seven, Nine, Ten and WIN largely set their own rules here. ACMA is now reviewing the exemption and expects to hand down a decision within weeks. FARE hopes the review will finally close this loophole.

Calls to Close the Gap

Professor Elizabeth Handsley leads Children and Media Australia and called the review a genuine opportunity. Every child, she said, has the right to watch sport free from alcohol ads. Closing the loophole would let children and families enjoy the game without facing harmful marketing.

Her comments echo FARE’s wider argument that alcohol sponsorship in sport has grown largely unchecked for years. That leaves regulators playing catch-up with an industry that already holds a place in every major club.

What Happens Next

Alcohol advertising in sport now touches nearly every part of the fan experience, whatever ACMA decides. It shows up on the jersey on a player’s back and during the ad break in the final quarter. The pressure on regulators keeps building, and FARE says it will keep pushing for tighter rules until real change happens.

About FARE

FARE describes itself as an organisation working towards an Australia free from alcohol harm. It wants healthy communities, and fair, equitable and just laws, policies and programmes. FARE works with local communities and people with lived experience of alcohol harm. It also partners with aligned organisations, health professionals, researchers and governments across the country. Its goal is simple: improve health and wellbeing for everyone in Australia, from local communities up to national policy.

If this raises concerns for you, help is available. Call Lifeline on 13 11 14. Call the National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline on 1800 250 015. Or call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732.

New report exposes the alcohol industry’s stronghold on Australian sport