For the first time in nearly 50 years the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales will not appear in the Rose Bowl Parade:
America’s behemoth brewery decided to spend its money elsewhere. A late November media release by the company, which three years ago was purchased by worldwide conglomerate InBev, noted that it preferred to invest “in other types of sponsorships and events that reach a higher concentration of beer drinkers . . . and where [we] can more directly discuss the Budweiser brand.’’
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A-B’s affiliation with the Rose Parade dates to the years leading up to World War I. The brewery didn’t stable Clydesdales until 1933, bringing them aboard as a corporate symbol/mascot just as Prohibition ended. Twenty years later, Jan. 1, 1953, the gentle-giant Scottish horses made their debut in the Pasadena parade, hauling an Anheuser-Busch float, much as they would for decades to come. Until now.
Back when the St. Louis-based brewery owned the city’s beloved baseball Cardinals, team members sometimes appeared on the Budweiser float on New Year’s Day, sort of a spring training tease. More than a few Red Sox fans in the viewing audience shielded their eyes on Jan. 1, 1968, when Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst and the great Lou Brock were aboard the Spirit of St. Louis float, less than 90 days after beating the Sox at Fenway Park in Game 7 of the World Series.
Later that same day, Southern Cal rubbed out Indiana, 14-3, in the Rose Bowl, and Trojan ballcarrier Orenthal James Simpson was named MVP. Like the Clydesdales, Simpson today will not be anywhere near the Pasadena parade route, unless he is watching from the family room at his publicly funded boys club.
I suppose the decision was inevitable after InBev purchased Anheuser-Busch. However, A-B’s connection with Los Angeles is only a little less close than its connection with St. Louis. Adolphus Busch made his winter home in Pasadena in 1906 and the first Busch Gardens was located there.
Signs of the times. Formerly iconic American brands just aren’t American any more. Or as bound to their old traditions of community support.
On the plus side of internationalization, now, perhaps, Budweiser will become something worth drinking. Not guaranteed, of course, but still possible.