Two years after its Bud Light debacle cost Anheuser-Busch millions of customers and dollars, the brewing giant has taken a major step away from showing its LGBT colors.
Anheuser-Busch has dropped its support of the St. Louis Pride festival, according to KSDK-TV.
Pride St. Louis called the change “especially painful.”
Currently, the June festival has fallen short by more than $150,000 compared to what it raised in 2024. As a result, it has begun a fundraising campaign.
The company supported Pride-themed events for 30 years, Pride St. Louis President Marty Zuniga said, according to St. Louis Public Radio.
“For them to walk away from the table in negotiations, simply to note that, ‘we just don’t see the value in it anymore,’ it’s like a bad breakup,” he said, adding that he was “deeply disappointed” in the company.
Jordan Braxton, a representative of Pride St. Louis, estimated that in recent years, Anheuser-Busch donated about $70,000 worth of cash and in-kind support, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The company has not issued a statement about the change, and did not immediately respond to the newspaper’s request for a comment.
According to Forbes, Pride events across the country have seen a decline in donations.
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San Francisco Pride executive director Suzanne Ford has said her organization is down about $300,000 in donations, which is about 10 percent of its $3.2 million budget.
Chris Piedmont, NYC Pride’s media director, said some corporate sponsors have cut back, while others have hedged on making a commitment.
Pride Houston reported that some companies cut donations by as much as 75 percent, with corporate sponsorships overall down about $100,000.
Bud Light began its downfall in 2023 by partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, sparking a boycott that sent sales into a tailspin.
Bud Light sales had dropped 29.9 percent year-over-year as of Jan. 20, 2024, according to data from Bump Williams Consulting, according to Fox Business. One former executive said the impact lingers.
“They haven’t at all [recovered],” former Anheuser-Busch President of Operations Anson Frericks said in February.
“They continue to shed customers,” Frericks said.
“I think that’s one of the most interesting parts about this story is that they lost 30 percent of their customers,” he pointed out. “Millions of customers, billions of dollars of shareholder value over the last couple of years.
“Their customers are asking them, ‘Hey, what is Bud Light going to be, moving forward? Is it gonna be more than Shane Gillis and fun in football, or is it Dylan Mulvaney?’ Until the company really comes back and says clearly what Bud Light is going to be, I don’t know if any of their loyal customers are going to come back,” he said.
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