Bud Light was listed as a sponsor for an “all-ages Pride event” in Flagstaff, Arizona called “Pride in the Pines,” but seems to have recently withdrawn its support for the event in light of its recent plummet in sales sparked by a controversial partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

On June 17, Flagstaff Pride is hosting it’s 27th annual “Pride in the Pines” event, which is allegedly a family-friendly pride festival.

In a promotional social media post on Monday, Flagstaff Pride shared a poster with the event details. The poster said the event is “Presented by Bud Light.” At the bottom of the poster, there was a list of all the festival sponsors, where Bud Light was again listed.

‘Pride in the Pines’ promotional poster

Bud Light was also listed as a sponsor on Flagstaff Pride’s website. Included in the list of sponsors are Old Navy Coca-Cola USA, and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

List of sponsors for Pride in the Pines 2023

News outlets quickly picked up on this because it seemed like a very unexpected move from Anheuser-Busch, which is already struggling to stop its sales from plummeting.

However, on Wednesday, Flagstaff Pride released a brief statement on the sponsorship, saying that the promotional poster was incorrect.

“We put out an incorrect promotional poster which included Bud Light as a sponsor,” said Flagstaff Pride. “Attached is the correct poster.”

The new poster no longer said “Presented by Bud Light.”

The website for the event, however, still has Bud Light listed as a sponsor (at the time of this article’s publishing).

Anheuser-Busch also gave a statement to various news outlets including OutKick, saying, “Bud Light is not a sponsor of this event. The event organizers have issued a corrected version of the poster.”

This leaves everyone wondering why Bud Light was listed as a sponsor in the first place. Were they ever sponsoring the festival? And if so, why did they decide to pull out at the last minute?

While Anheuser-Busch has not commented on this specifically, it does not seem far-fetched to assume that they are trying to do damage control to stop their sales from plummeting each week. As of last week, the beer company has lost $27 billion in market value.

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