Non-alcoholic (NA) beer maker Athletic Brewing Company has struck a multi-year sponsorship deal with Live Nation to make its beer available in 117 concert venues and at four major music festivals.
Athletic’s packaged beer will be available in venues such as Brooklyn Paramount, Shoreline Amphitheatre and The Gorge Amphitheatre, as well as music festivals Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, BottleRock Napa Valley, Festival La Onda, and Two Step Inn.
A launch event is slated for a Foster The People show on February 25 at Brooklyn Paramount.
“The thing I love about this deal in particular is just that we’re going to be at all these venues, 365 days a year,” Athletic CMO Andrew Katz told Brewbound. “So we really want to try and build Athletic into the repertoire of concertgoers.”
Prior to the Live Nation deal, Athletic was in around 300 venues, including sporting venues, nationwide, Katz said. Katz said the placements “could theoretically double the size of the opportunity for us” and get its beer in front of tens of millions of concertgoers annually.
Flagship offerings Run Wild IPA and Free Wave Hazy IPA will predominantly be sold in 19.2 oz. single-serve cans at the venues, although the assortment will vary. Some venues will carry Upside Dawn Golden and Athletic Lite, while at House of Blues locations, Athletic’s beer will show up in 12 oz. cans, including Atlética Mexican-style copper.
In the Live Nation venues, Athletic will be the exclusive NA pouring and marketing partner, Katz explained.
In addition to concession sales, Athletic’s offerings will be served in green rooms backstage at the venues. The company will also conduct sampling at venues and festivals throughout the year.
Katz expects the company will sample Athletic’s beer at 100 events in Year One of the three-year pact.
“We anticipate doing over 125,000 samples in 2025,” Katz said.
Beyond increased on-premise sales opportunities and brand awareness, Athletic will be receiving data to help it learn what works in venues, Katz said.
“It may be that we find that during different dayparts or different days of the week, we actually do better,” he said. “These are some of the things that we’ll learn as we go. And really excited to get a lot of the data, because we will get a tremendous amount of data from Live Nation to understand, what’s working? What do we need to keep improving?”
The deal follows a Live Nation 0% Proof Custom Study last spring that found that 70% of concertgoers are seeking more NA beverage options at live music venues.
“With Athletic now at more than 100 venues and festivals, fans will have even more choices during their most memorable moments,” Maureen Ford, Live Nation’s president of national and festival sales, said in the announcement.
“We want to be in these moments of enjoyment,” Katz added. “People are looking for alternatives, whether it’s, ‘I’m gonna have a couple beers and then I want an Athletic,’ or ‘I’m already buzzed because I’ve got THC or CBD, and I want to drink something that’s savory and social.’”