This article presents the views of 692 adult male Australian sports fans, collected via an online survey from July 2024 to September 2024, regarding the role of alcohol when attending professional sports events in Australia. While the popular orthodoxy is that sport, alcohol, and masculinity are entwined, our data illustrates a different picture. Just under three-quarters of the sample (74%) explained how consuming alcohol was not an important part of their game-day experience, with just under half (46%) stating they consume no alcoholic drinks and just under a third (32%) stating they consume one or two. Focusing on the reasons behind this, we explore the contribution that social practice theory can add to studies of sport-related drinking. Our analysis suggests that the everyday social practices embedded in male sports fans watching sport and drinking alcohol reflect two core themes: (1) a declining focus on drinking alcohol and (2) changing associations between male violence and negative behaviors at games. This addition to the research on male fans, sport, and alcohol supports wider research that suggests that people are increasingly choosing to reduce or remove alcohol consumption from a range of social experiences, and that previous categorizations of men's drinking at professional sports events no longer reflect contemporary social patterns and practices.
Cleland et al. (Thu,) studied this question.