Bud Light controversy spills over to NFL Draft. Will Kansas City feel a boycott?

Earlier this month an angry, lathered-up Kid Rock wearing a MAGA hat destroyed cases of Bud Light by shooting them with a rifle, firing up controversy over the brand’s affiliation with transgender social media star Dylan Mulvaney.

That ongoing drama is now spilling over to the NFL Draft in Kansas City as social media users — many of them citing anti-transgender views — call for a boycott of the three-day event, which begins Thursday. More than 300,000 people are expected to attend.

Bud Light is an official sponsor of the draft. Visitors and viewers will see the words “Presented by Bud Light” everywhere.

For now the boycott drive is largely contained to social media, where Twitter and Facebook users are posting messages like this: “Boycott NFL Draft being sponsored by Bud light if they want to go woke I do not need to see their new spokesperson on my TV.”

“I quit the NFL 4 years ago for some dude with a 2ft diameter fro kneeling on the sideline and I’m never ever going back ... .kinda like I quit Bud Light 2 weeks ago and will never go back!” tweeted AZUltraMAGAman.

There is pushback, though, to boycotting Bud Light, and the draft. Some of it came from Donald Trump Jr., who faced criticism from fellow Republicans after he called for an end to the boycotts because Anheuser-Busch, Bud Light’s parent company, is a sizable donor to Republicans. Others oppose the boycott’s transphobic rhetoric — like calling the draft a “woke lovefest.”

“There are openly gay players in the NFL, male cheerleaders. … And you want me to pass on the NFL Draft because a Trans person appeared on a commemorative can of cheap beer?” wrote one Twitter user.

“Hey all you bigots who are lashing out against Bud Light!” wrote another. “Remember to boycott the NFL since Bud Light is the OFFICIAL beer of the NFL and they’re the ones that present the Draft Concert Series. I don’t want to see any anti-lgbtq people watching draft coverage or games this year.”

Is there concern the boycott might hurt the event?

“Since this is an NFL event, we’re deferring to them for a comment,” Elliott Scott, spokesman for the KC Sports Commission & Foundation, told The Star.

The league had not responded as of Friday afternoon.

Over the last few days, Fox News and other conservative media outlets have tied the draft to the Mulvaney storm that blew up during the Final Four of the NCAA basketball tournament.

A Fox story about Bud Light sponsoring the draft pointed out that Mulvaney also has a partnership with Nike.

Mulvaney is a 26-year-old social media juggernaut with more than 10 million followers on TikTok and 1.8 million on Instagram. The Hollywood comedian and musical theater actor is best known for her “Days of Girlhood” series on TikTok, which she launched in March 2022 to chronicle her gender transition.

Last fall she visited the White House with other young social activists and talked to President Joe Biden about transgender issues.

That visit riled conservatives like Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, who later tweeted: “Dylan Mulvaney, Joe Biden, and radical left-wing lunatics want to make this absurdity normal.”

Right before the men’s NCAA championship game earlier this month, Mulvaney released an Instagram post about a giveaway by the beer company and poked fun at her lack of knowledge about sports.

Bud Light paid her for the post. Many, possibly most, large companies now pay influencers like Mulvaney to promote products on their social media platforms.

“I kept hearing about this thing called March Madness and I thought we were all just having a hectic month,” she said, popping open a can of Bud Light while wearing black satin gloves that matched her evening dress.

“But it turns out it has something to do with sports. And I’m not sure exactly which sport, but, either way it’s a cause to celebrate.”

She sipped the beer, then said, “This month I celebrated my Day 365 of womanhood.”

She said Bud Light sent her “possibly the best gift ever” and showed a picture of a blue tallboy can with her face on it.

She ended the video with “Love ya! Go team. Whatever team you love, I love too.”

Conservative condemnation of both Mulvaney and Bud Light came swiftly. The company issued a statement defending its partnership with Mulvaney, stating it “works with hundreds of influencers across our brands as one of many ways to authentically connect with audiences across various demographics.”

It also said it makes commemorative gift cans like that for fans, and they’re not for sale.

The day after the Mulvaney video came out, outspoken singer/songwriter Kid Rock used his own Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts to show how he felt about the partnership. That triggered calls to boycott Bud Light and unleashed a flood of anti-LGBTQ commentary on social media.

“The NFL is going woke the NFL draft is sponsored by Bud light it won’t be long when you see your quarterbacks and linebackers dressed as women playing football or actually looking like women disgusting one more reason to boycott it,” wrote one Facebook commenter.

In his video, Kid Rock said, “Grandpa’s feeling a little frisky today — let me say something to all of you and be as clear and concise as possible,” before he shot up cases of Bud Light stacked on a table.

He shouted vulgarities at Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch, the St. Louis-based parent of Bud Light and Budweiser.

Country singer Travis Tritt later took to Twitter to say he no longer supports Anheuser-Busch and would no longer request the company’s products be available to him on concert days as part of his hospitality rider. “I know many other artists who are doing the same,” he wrote.

“As if the NFL hasn’t lost so many fans between this and Collin Kapernick! Who’s making these choices. … I’d be on a firing streak ASAP! Boycott Nike/Bud Light! Bad bad choices. I’m all about inclusion but not this way! You just alienated 95% of your market!” wrote one Facebook user after the video came out.

Howard Stern criticized both Tritt and Rock. Rock is known for singing songs about “doing my thing man and (bleep) you if you’re not with me,” Stern said on his SiriusXM radio show.

“I wish I could call Kid Rock and have him come on the show and just tell me, ‘Why are you so upset about this? How is it hurtful?’ I don’t know why he got so upset,” he said.

“I’m really dumbfounded by why someone would care so much that they would blow up a can of Bud Light and say, ‘(Bleep) Anheuser-Busch.’ I don’t get it.”

In December 2021, the sports trade publication Sportico reported that the NFL renewed its partnership with Anheuser-Busch and that Bud Light would remain the official beer of the NFL for at least five more years.

“We know fans love watching their team play with a cold beer in-hand, and we’re excited that the Bud Light brand will be part of the season’s biggest moments — beginning as presenting sponsor of the NFL Draft,” Matt Davis, the head of Anheuser-Busch’s sports marketing, said in a statement last year.

The issue has led to discussions about everything from “toxic masculinity” to what Forbes called the “fumbled Dylan Mulvaney controversy” when it comes to inclusive marketing.

On Thursday, Biden administration press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemned threats against the company and Mulvaney.

Bomb threats have been called in to several Anheuser-Busch plants across the country.

“When a transgender American posts a video about a brand of beer they enjoy and it leads to bomb threats, it’s clear that level of violence and vitriol against transgender Americans has to stop,” Jean-Pierre said during the daily press briefing.