Since the Dylan Mulvaney scandal led to widespread boycotts of Bud Light, the once-leading beer brand has tried to steer away from anything political.
The beer brand lost about 26% of its sales after it partnered with Mulvaney, a transgender social-media influencer, to expand the Anheuser-Busch InBev BUD brand's reach in the LGBTQ+ community.
In this small marketing effort, the company sent Mulvaney Bud Light cans with her face on them to celebrate her first year as a woman.
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As many people know, the promotion led Kid Rock to post a social-media video in which he shot up cases of the then-top-selling beer brand. Boycotts followed as a number of right-wing media personalities and country music stars decided that Bud Light had committed an indefensible crime.
Once the scandal hit, Anheuser-Busch simply tried to move the conversation forward. The brand went back to featuring National Football League stars in its ads, with benign social-media posts along the line of "Who's ready for the weekend?"
Anheuser-Busch InBev Chief Executive Michel Doukeris never apologized to either side. Instead, he made clear that he thought the biggest mistake he made was allowing the conversation to become political.
"We work every day to delight our consumers and bring people together. When we do this well, our brands perform. Finally, let's talk beer. Everything we do should be about beer and should promote beer," he said during his company's first-quarter-earnings call.
The CEO also made clear that he believed his company should steer away from all political conversations.
"Beer is an essential part of life's meaningful moments, whether in sports, music, or celebrations," he said.
"These are moments that bring people together, and this is why I love beer. While beer will always be at the table when important topics are debated, the beer itself should not be the focus of the debate. But life is about being easy to drink and easy to enjoy. That's what consumers want, and that's what we are focused on delivering."
But with its latest massive sponsorship deal, Bud Light has waded deeply back into politics even if it didn't mean to.
Image source: Anheuser Busch
Bud Light partners with UFC
Anheuser-Busch desperately wants Bud Light to go back to being the beer you drink while watching football or having a barbecue. To further assert its manly ties to the world of sports, Bud Light signed the biggest-ever sponsorship deal in the history of Ultimate Fighting Championship to become the brand's official beer.
On the surface, this seems like a smart move that will move the beer brand away from its transgender scandal.
The problem — and Anheuser-Busch should have seen this coming — is that UFC has its own transgender scandals, including one involving middleweight champion Sean Strickland, who has not been quiet in his disdain for the transgender community.
Strickland quickly jumped onto social media and shared some posts that Bud Light probably was not thrilled about.
"@budlight I'm really proud of you guys...I'm going to fix you guys. Don't worry I got this!!! I'm here to save the day," Strickland wrote on Instagram, accompanied with a video.
In the video, Strickland also referenced Bud Light's Pride-themed cans from Pride Month in 2022, which featured rainbow cans featuring pronouns. At the time, the brand faced only a mild backlash.
The UFC middleweight champion, however, seems to be saluting Bud Light for the wrong things.
"You know how I feel about transgenders. I go fucking hard. Just what I do. I'm the biggest advocate of biological females. If I said my views on transgenders I would get kicked off Instagram," Strickland continued.
In remarks made during a UFC media day Strickland also called for women to be taken out of the workforce and for them to lose the right to vote.
"We let women vote, no offense. Think about America prior to women voting. They tried to ban alcohol, I don’t even drink but I’m not trying to ban alcohol. So, what you did, man, you let these women come into the workforce, now we make less money, you got kids raising themselves on TikTok, we need to go back to like 1942, maybe 1958," he said, MMA Weekly reported.
The UFC has not fined its fighters for any comments they make in public. Strickland has taken full advantage of that and has admitted that he went through a "weird neo-Nazi, white supremacist phase when I was younger," Daily Mail reported.
Bud Light excited about UFC deal
Anheuser-Busch did not immediately return a request for comment on Strickland's remarks. At the time the deal became public, the company's global chief marketing officer, Marcel Marcondes, said in a statement:
“As leaders of our category, we are focused on new opportunities to connect with consumers in new occasions. UFC has become an undeniable force in the sports industry, and that’s why we’re so excited to partner with them and continue to amplify this sport around the world. We will be creating new and exciting brand experiences for UFC fans.”
Bud Light will be integrated across all of UFC's shows and pay-per-view events as its official beer sponsor.
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