UGA, Ga. Tech-colored Bud Light?

By CHRISTIAN BOONE

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

UGA fans can buy virtually anything bearing the team’s colors, save for the one product most Bulldog fans can’t live without on game days: Beer.

Thirsty Georgia Tech fans are likewise out of luck, as both schools have informed Anheuser-Busch they oppose plans to market Bud Light beer cans emblazoned with the schools’ colors (red and black for Georgia, gold and white for Tech).

“We are concerned about any activity that might promote alcohol abuse by students,” said James Fetig, Tech’s Associate Vice President for Communications and Marketing.

UGA spokesman Tom Jackson echoed Fetig’s concern, and the university sent Anheuser-Busch a cease and desist order on July 28 threatening legal action if red and black beer cans were sold in Georgia.

“According to our legal experts, there’s cause because of the history relating to the school’s colors and our marketing of them,” Jackson said.

In other words, when most Georgians see red and black or gold and white, they think Bulldogs and Yellow Jackets. Those colors are used to sell everything from boxer shorts to Christmas tree ornaments, with profits going to the respective colleges. Neither UGA or Tech would see a dime from Anheuser-Busch’s “Team Pride” campaign.

“Placing our school colors on beer cans implies an association and endorsement that does not exist and we would applaud if this promotion were stopped.” said Fetig, the Tech spokesman.

Ironically, Georgia Tech’s band plays the Budweiser theme song at the end of the third quarter of football games. Fans lustily sing along to the chorus, “When you say Budweiser, you’ve said it all.”

More than two dozen other schools have joined Tech and Georgia in opposing the Bud Light campaign, though administrators at LSU and Texas have allowed it, according to the Wall Street Journal.

LSU’s stance has stirred controversy from some on campus, including the school’s newspaper, which called the campaign “a slick profiting scheme.”

Anheuser-Busch said it will not pursue the campaign in areas where the schools object.