Alcohol-Free Brands Push Boundaries: Expanding from Stadiums to Skies

More than 400 people gathered for a summer pop-up at the New York Mets’ home stadium, Citi Field in Queens, snapping photos with team mascots, listening to DJ sets, playing lawn games and drinking cocktails, beer and wine—minus the booze.

The four-day activation—a partnership between the MLB franchise and event company Absence of Proof—put young nonalcoholic brands like Spiritless, Surely and Ritual in the same environment with legacy liquor giants Heineken, Molson Coors and Anheuser-Busch.

The party doubled as a fundraiser for the Amazin’ Mets Foundation, with some $12,000 in proceeds going to Elmcor, a health services and substance treatment nonprofit. Organizers point to the event as a precedent-setter for future mashups of mainstream entertainment and alcohol-free libations.

“We think this could open doors at places that maybe didn’t believe in the concept of nonalcoholic cocktails before,” Elizabeth Gascoigne, founder of Absence of Proof, told Adweek.

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The experiment—with support from Dunkin’ and Cadillac—kicked off a broader commitment from the venue, where 2023 versions of mocktails that bear no resemblance to the Shirley Temples of the past are now on the permanent menu.

Mets co-owner Alex Cohen has said she wants the arena to be as inclusive as possible, which extends to fans who don’t drink alcohol, aren’t imbibing on any given day, or are swapping between alcohol and alternatives, a common practice known as zebra striping.

Cohen joins a number of executives across professional, amateur and college sports, travel, music, retail and other categories that are increasingly bringing spiritless beverages into the fold.

Some of those spaces—tailgates, viewing parties and live concerts, among them—have long had alcohol baked into their DNA. But the modern temperance movement and its particular appeal to millennials and Gen Z is spurring the first-time rise of nonalcoholic choices in these traditionally boozy bastions.

The phenom isn’t confined to Sober October and Dry January, though the growing popularity of these challenges has helped paved the way for new distribution, sampling and exposure.

And major power players want in: There are ongoing discussions between brands in the fast-growing NA segment and the NBA, the NFL, the NHL, MLB, entertainment conglomerate AEG and other leaders in broad-based entertainment and pop culture.

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AEG’s Coachella and New Orleans Jazz Fest featured on-site NA bars for the first time this year, establishing a successful track record that could lead to more such alliances. JetBlue recently became the first airline to add booze-free beer to its offerings, and streaming giant Netflix launched an NA craft brew themed to The Witcher, both via Athletic Brewing.

Other deals are imminent, according to industry execs, though the startup nature of the non-alcoholic category may mean toe in the water rather than nationally scaled programs or arena naming rights in the near future.

Even so, there’s an undeniable trend that’s sweeping the country, according to Andrew Katz, CMO at Athletic Brewing, which is second only to Heineken 0.0 in nonalcoholic beer sales in the U.S.

“The driver here is societal change,” Katz told Adweek. “There’s a pronounced difference in today’s consumers, especially the younger ones, and they want these options. Venues that don’t have them will literally be leaving money on the table.”

Potential partners want to capitalize on buzzworthy NA brands, but programs need to be tailored to the nascent industry rather than borrowed from Big Alcohol’s playbook, according to Jim Gunning, CMO at Best Day Brewing, which is in its second year as a sponsor of the Professional Pickleball Association tour.

“The key is to come at these deals in a functional way,” Gunning told Adweek. “So consumers will understand why we’re there, and we can educate people about what we’re trying to achieve in the category.”

A recent Drizly study found that 23% of Gen Z and 24% of millennials reported often drinking NA beer, wine and spirits, while only 6% of Gen X and 1% of boomers said the same. Though the data points to an age divide, there’s anecdotal evidence that the sober curious movement is gaining in popularity across demos.

The category overall grew 29% on Drizly in 2022 compared to 2021, and 45% of survey participants said they’re “extremely likely” or “likely” to take part in Sober October and Dry January.

And per a recent Coefficient Capital study, 22% of Americans aged 21-plus say they plan to drink less alcohol over the next year, citing their physical and mental health. 

Against that backdrop, NA brands are gaining real estate beyond health clubs, yoga studios, Tough Mudder races and other early adopters.

For example, San Francisco-based Free Spirits has started talking to coffee shops about boosting their afternoon sales —when foot traffic slows—by offering cocktails made with its tequila, gin and whiskey alternatives.

The brand is also in discussions with NBA and NFL teams, where venues have strict rules about when they sell—or cut off—alcohol, according to Milan Martin, a former advertising creative who founded Free Spirits in 2019.

“It’s the right thing to do from a safety and wellness perspective to stop selling alcohol in the third quarter,” Martin told Adweek. “But that’s a huge loss of revenue that NA could fill.”

Festivals, sporting events and venues should see the category as “additive” and not detrimental to liquor sales, per Brianda Gonzalez, founder of the influential NA retailer The New Bar in Venice, Calif.

“There’s a lot of cross-purchasing that happens, so NA doesn’t cannibalize anything,” said Gonzalez, whose brand may make a second Coachella appearance in 2024. “This isn’t something to feel threatened by, and it’s actually quite beneficial from a business perspective to embrace it.”

Athletic Brewing, which has grown into a $60 million brand since its product debuted in 2018, has blazed a trail in unexpected crossovers. As its name implies, the NA beer established early connections with active consumers and sports fans—Ironman and Spartan race sponsorships, to name a few—but now counts Netflix and JetBlue as partners.

The ongoing Netflix deal produced a limited-time brew called Geralt’s Gold, inspired by The Witcher, a hit series with a significant amount of beer drinking. (There’s no product integration because it’s a period piece.) Two more tie-ins are planned for 2024 and 2025, per Katz, with possible placement into the streaming service’s content.

And the collaboration with JetBlue, a groundbreaker in the airline industry that puts Athletic in front of 30 million annual travelers, serves as “validation” for the category, Katz said.

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“It shows that NA is no longer in the penalty box,” Katz said, adding: “It’s much more of a mainstream product that people enjoy consuming” rather than a consolation prize.

The brand also works with celebrity chef David Chang and country music stars Julia Cole and Walker Hayes, sponsoring the latter’s current tour with in-venue promo materials, green room and tour bus placement, social media posts and on-site sales in some locations. 

Digging into a sports space where alcohol can’t go, Athletic has NIL deals with more than a dozen college football, basketball and softball players including the Texas Longhorns’ offensive line.

Having popular young athletes as endorsers “helps to normalize and legitimize” the category, Katz said, in line with the marketing team’s goal of making an NA beverage “a cool thing to have in your hand, where nobody asks why you aren’t drinking—instead, it’s a badge of smarter, more mindful drinkers.”