Public appeal for memorabilia to build website on tobacco, alcohol and gambling industries sports sponsorship
Published: 9 March 2026
Members of the public are asked for their help in building a website that will chart the rise of unhealthy sponsorship in British sport over the last six decades
Members of the public are asked for their help in building a website that will chart the rise of unhealthy sponsorship in British sport over the last six decades.
An ambitious new project, which charts the rise of sports sponsorship by the tobacco, gambling and alcohol industries since the 1960s, today launches a public appeal for sports memorabilia showing how these companies promoted their brands to sports fans.
Backed by £1.7 million in funding from the Wellcome Trust, the project, headed by the University of Nottingham, in partnership with the University of Glasgow and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, examines how the tobacco and nicotine, alcohol, and gambling industries have historically used sport to promote their addictive products.
The new interactive website - Kicking the Habit - will create a digital map of unhealthy sponsorship across British sporting history, documenting how branding from these industries became embedded in everything from elite motorsport to grassroots competitions.
The research team is now inviting people to submit images of sports memorabilia and marketing materials linked to unhealthy sponsorship.
Examples could include cigarette-branded Formula One clothing or toys; alcohol-branded drinkware commemorating sporting events or competitions; match programmes or replica kits featuring betting company logos; or even personal photographs from sporting events capturing brand advertising.
Dr Fabiola Creed, Research Associate in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow, said, “We know from old documents that companies branded all kinds of everyday household items and then gave them away at sporting events, or created interactive stalls to encourage novelty family photos - ranging from binoculars and programmes to placing giant-sized sofas in front of a game.
“To encourage greater awareness of these marketing strategies, we are building a shared public archive to uncover where these branded memorabilia were given (or photographed), and how some became physically embedded and therefore normalised in people’s lives and homes. Take a look around your house - and check cupboards, drawers, lofts, and forgotten boxes. If you find any both branded and sport-related objects, photographs or physical prints, we would love you to take photos and upload them to our digital map.
“This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to a uniquely collaborative piece of research and help create a novel and valuable public history resource.”
Professor Anna Greenwood, Professor of Health History at the University of Nottingham and Project Lead, said: “The way these industries have sponsored sport has become so ubiquitous that many of us now accept it without really considering the public health implications. We very much hope this project will cause people to stop to consider how sport has been actively mobilised to promote the objectives of these unhealthy industries.”
By placing public participation at its core, this initiative aims not only to document history but to spark informed debate about the long-standing relationship between sport and industries linked to addiction and public health harms.
Researchers hope the platform will become a lasting national archive - and a catalyst for deeper public understanding of how commercial interests have shaped the sporting landscape over the past 60 years.
First published: 9 March 2026