Drinking during Public Sporting Events

When college students and adults drink irresponsibly, they often create negative associations with alcohol and its hindering effects. Alcohol is a constituent of various recreational and other events in the United States. It is available at a wide range of public sporting events and often is the central focus of celebrations of success and achievement. Unfortunately, as well as contributing to relaxation and conviviality, alcohol is also associated with verbal and physical abuse, arrests for aggressive behavior and violence and admissions to hospitals as a consequence of alcohol related assaults. These concluding aspects have recently been raised in sport broadcasting and news nationwide. This initiates problems such as violence, public urination, or people collapsing as a consequence of excessive drinking. Facility management programs have made proper precautions regarding such events. These problems are not a new phenomena in the world of sports. In an attempt to contain violence, more facilities and leagues have taken action to control and remove the availability of alcohol at such events. After considerable research, there seems to be a repetition of facility management aspects used in everyday sporting events, such as the TEAM and FAM organizational programs, specific “pre” and “post” game provisions, and actions regarding “in-game” incidents.

There are many alcohol management strategies that facilities and programs have developed over the past two decades. Almost every professional sport team and facility follows the grand design of the non-profit organization called Techniques for Effective Alcohol Management. TEAM begin back in the 1980’s in reaction to the “high number of traffic fatalities resulting from heavy drinking at sporting events and to increasing public awareness of the problem of alcohol-related driving (Stadium Alcohol Management).” This program has two major goals regarding alcohol management: reduce drunk-driving and publicize