Tobacco Documents Online

Advantage; Ms. Slims Cigarette Wars Moveto _a New Arena UICK: Think Virginia Slims and what comes to mind? For millions of Amer- icans, the answer may be tennis stars rather than cigarettes. Last week, ac- cusing the cigarette companies of ex- ploiting athletes' images of health to promote "addiction, disease and death," Dr. Louis W. Sul- livan, the Secretary of Health and Human Serv- ices, called on players and promoters to shun to- bacco's "blood money." During an average ten- nis match, Dr. Sullivan said, about 100 Amer- icans "will die of diseases caused by cigarette smoking." Until Dr. Sullivan's attack, the tobacco indus- try's longstanding use of sports to promote ciga- rettes had drawn little public fire. In charged language, he complained that the practice makes smoking seem healthy and glamorous in the eyes of teen-agers. Other critics add a third complaint: the television shots that frame Martina Navratilova against a background of Virginia Slims banners violate the spirit of the ban on televised tobacco ads. And some wonder if those televised banners and billboards don't Atsociatd Pnaf Cars and Camels: winners of Miami Grand Prix last week: violate the law itself. with cigarette billboards. Anti-smoking advo- In recent years, cigarette companies have cates like Dr. Alan Blum, a Baylor physician, sponsored tennis, soccer, auto racing, horse rac- charge that the event amounts to a two-hour ing and even darts. While the industry's enemies high-speed cigarette ad. denounce this involvement on all fronts, it is the - Beyond tennis and auto racing, other ciga- link to respiratory sports like tennis and soccer that many find most galling. Stock-car racers might be able to smoke and drive, they say, but no tennis star could smoke and win. Steve Weiss, a spokesman for Philip Morris, seemed to con- cede as much last summer, when, discussing the Virginia Slims tournament, he said: "We don't ask any of our players to smoke. I doubt many, if any, do." The involvement of cigarettes and sports goes back so far that baseball may even owe tobacco part of its vocabulary: "bullpen," some baseball histdrians say, derives from the Bull Durham signs tacked on the outfield walls. But the interest of the cigarette companies •be- came particularly intense after Jan. 1, 1971, when the ban on televised tobacco advertising took effect..Philip Morris's Virginia Slims tour= naments and R. J. Reynolds's Winston Cup auto racing both began in 1971. Now broadcasts of Winston Cup events often show cars painted with cigarette brands, in races named for ciga- rette brands, speeding around tracks decked rette-sponsored sports have included the Van- tage Golf Scoreboard, Salem Pro-Sail races, Lucky Strike bowling, the Winston Rodeo, Benson & Hedges on Ice and Marlboro Cup horse racing. Last season cigarette companies had advertisements in 22 of the 24 major league baseball stadiums in the United States, often in' places most likely to be seen on television. R. J. Reynolds was one of four major sponsors of the 1986 World Cup in• Mexico City, giving the com- pany a chance to post four seven-meter Camel signs next to the playing field. A worldwide tele- vision audience of 650 million tuned in. 'A Loophole' Cigarette company spokesmen argue that their interest in athletics has nothing to dd with subliminal messages about health or access to television. "We're promoting entertainment for people around the country,"-Mr. Weiss said last week. But in the opinion of Lydia Stephans, pro- gramming manager for ABC Sports, Virginia Slims put up the money "so they could get that recognition, the association with sports and health." "On their half, I thtnk' it's clever;' she said. "'They've found a loophole." Some foreign athletes have rebelled. Pelo, the former soc-, cer star, refuses to be photo- graphed next to cigarette ad- vertisements. In Canada, a number of professional skiers protested - and several refused trophies - during the 1983-84 season, when an R.J. Reynolds brand called Export A became the officiall sponsor of the Canadian Ski Associa- tion. The company's original contract called for exclusive rights to put its ads on flags, poles, course markers, score- boards, banners, buildings, podiums and backdrops. In addition, ttie company called on the association to "use its best efforts to have the events telecast on national television." The contract was changed after the skiers complained. And the re- sulting dispute led, eventually, to a ban on all cigarette advertising in Canada. By contrast, few American athletes have balked at their ties to tobacco. After Dr. Sulli- van's attack, Zina Garrison, a top-ranked player, defended Philip Morris as "a classy or- ganization" that has "done a lot for women's tennis." Billie Jean King has portrayed Philip Morris as a feminist ally; recalling how the company lifted women's tennis from its stepchild status and helped bring it wealth, power and prestige. But the two decades of increasing status for women's tennis have coipcided with Increasing rates in women's lung cancer, leaving a feminist defense ot cigarette sponsorship open to new at- tack. These days women's tennis would have little difficulty finding other sponsors: Ms. King and ° others even resisted an effort by the Procter & Gamble` Company two years ago to replace Philip Morris as the chief circult sponsor, citing old, loyalties. In the years ahead, Philip Morris may need its old friends; in Dr. Sullivan, it clearly has a new enemy. . ®'J CJc ~ 00 ~ ~ Le~