Researcher: Beer Company Can't Put 'Bud Pong' Back in the Can
by Jim Brown
November 1, 2005
(AgapePress) - The Anheuser-Busch Company says it is pulling the plug on its promotion of a drinking game called "Bud Pong." However, a Harvard researcher is predicting the game will continue to wield damaging influence among college students. Bud Pong, a game distributed by beer wholesalers to bars in 18 U.S. states, is played by bouncing ping pong balls into cups, with players taking a drink if they lose a point. Anheuser-Busch claims the game is supposed to be played with water -- not beer. And now, since the New York Times has reported that many players are filling the cups with beer instead of water, the company has announced that it is ending the promotion.
But Dr. Henry Wechsler, director of the College Alcohol Study at the Harvard School of Public Health, feels it is disingenuous for the beer company to call Bud Pong a "water" drinking game. "I don't know if you could find any college students using water in this game," he says. "I think you'd have to look pretty far."
Also, Wechsler doubts the company's decision to end its association with Bud Pong, which has become wildly popular among college students, will have much impact on young people already playing the game with beer. "I'm sure that some will continue doing this, and certainly the retraction by Anheuser-Busch isn't going to change that," he says.
Officials with the beer company claim it does not want the Bud Pong promotion to conflict with a $500 million campaign to promote responsible drinking. But the Harvard researcher points out that there is nothing responsible in a game that, as he sees it, takes control over drinking decisions away from the individual students and makes it all part of a game.
"Anheuser-Busch has been posturing that it tries to promote responsible drinking," Wechsler says, "but certainly responsible drinking is not drinking at the behest of other people." Even if the beer company pulls out of its Bud Pong promotion at this juncture, he is concerned that the damage has already been done.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
