American Eye

Most Americans have two religions: their faith and their sports team. Suddenly, says Polly Ghazi, some powerful players in the sports world are beefing up their green credentials. Will the fans follow?

An astonishing 87% of US adults are committed sports fans, polling suggests, with most pouring their passion into pro football, baseball or basketball. That’s almost 190 million people. It’s a constituency to die for, and it raises an interesting question. Can sports stars help to green the consumer-crazed US?

Until the last few years the idea would have been laughable and incongruous. Not only do huge sports stadiums and car-dependent spectators consume vast amounts of energy at every game, but sports stars are known – and often worshipped – for their excesses rather than their good citizenship. Recently, though, US professional sports organisations have proved they are not immune to the climate change consciousness sweeping the country.

Last year, the New England Patriots, the highest profile American football team, signed a four-year deal to offset the electricity used to power their stadium for home games. No small task: a single game requires enough electricity to power 2,269 houses for a day.

Not to be outdone, baseball’s venerable San Francisco Giants installed 590 solar panels at their stadium, generating 123kW of power for the San Francisco grid. And in November the popular New Jersey Nets announced plans to become the first ‘carbon-neutral’ basketball team by buying renewable energy certificates to offset their energy use. The team’s owners have also staged ‘Green Nights’ to promote eco-awareness among fans, giving away 5,000 compact fluorescent lightbulbs at one recent game.

“Even the Superbowl was dubbed a ‘zero net waste event’ last year, with everything from cups to tablecloths reprocessed and reused”

Even the Superbowl – the biggest event in the US sporting calendar – has acquired a green tinge. In both 2006 and 2007, the National Football League offset the event’s emissions by planting 3,000 trees. The organisers of last year’s game and attendant festivities, Leigh Steinberg Sports & Entertainment, claimed to have produced a “zero net waste event”, with everything from cups to tablecloths reprocessed and reused.

“This is not a fad, it’s smart business,” says Mark Andrew of environmental marketing consultants GreenMark. “The ones [teams] who are pursuing sustainable practices are in the minority right now, but they will be the norm in five years,” he declared on Fox Business News recently.

While it’s easy to be cynical about sports organisations jumping on the low-carbon bandwagon, their impact could be very real: both in terms of sectoral energy savings and as role models for fans. “Major sports teams have an impact on the environment, especially on game days,” says Christina Lurie, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles football team, which launched a ‘Go Green’ campaign back in 2003. “We want to set a positive environmental example for the league, the city and our fans.”

The Eagles have put their money where their owner’s mouth is, purchasing wind energy certificates to offset energy use, recycling all paper, foam and plastic, and installing solar panels at its HQ. Employees who sign up for a domestic wind energy tariff are reimbursed the cost difference over traditional energy supply. And fans visiting the Eagles website are asked to buy a $62 sapling to be planted in Neshaminy State Park, Delaware, that will “trap about a ton of harmful carbon gases in its lifetime”.

The big unknown question is how much will these burgeoning initiatives actually influence fans’ lifestyle behaviour? Role models can clearly act as change agents. In the music world, there is no doubt that the ‘cut your carbon footprint’ message of stars such as Bono and Coldplay and mega events such as Live Earth, have reached (if not always converted) a much wider fan base than, say, Friends of the Earth. But, as Chris Alden pointed out in GF last year [GF65, ‘Wired Earth’], most musicians still tour – by plane and bus – and some are in it more for self-promotion than from deep personal commitment.

Likewise, the energy-saving message generated by US sports organisations will undoubtedly reach a blue collar middle American audience largely immune to the pleas of environmental NGOs – yet giant SUVs remain the vehicle of choice for the star players whom the fans worship. Now if Tiger Woods, Lebron James and the NFL’s superstars started touting hybrids, or better still bicycles, that would be real progress.

Polly Ghazi is US correspondent for Green Futures.

24 March 2008

Polly Ghazi