I actually have some specific speaking points. I appreciate your raising tobacco, because there are a lot of misconceptions about how tobacco impacted sports sponsorship.
To begin, I think it's interesting that neither Erica nor I—Erica is a millennial and I come from generation X—have any recollection of tobacco sponsoring amateur sport. We were both under the age of 17 and at that impressionable age and stage when tobacco sponsorship was at its peak, and then it was phased out in the early 1990s.
Through my research and speaking with experts in the area of sports sponsorship, I've learned that community sport and very few national sport organizations benefited from tobacco sponsorship. Tobacco primarily sponsored car racing, professional golf, and professional tennis.
I would also like to offer that the world of sponsorship today is far more sophisticated compared to sponsorship back in the 1980s and 1990s when tobacco was relying primarily on advertising billboards and signage throughout the venues. Today, sports sponsors are focused on experiential activation through social media, creating personalized experiences, and using the latest digital solutions to attract more customers to their brand and increase subscribers.
My last point is that there is no comparison between the tobacco sponsorship back in the 1980s and 1990s and today's reality. If food and beverage companies were no longer permitted to invest in sport today, over 470,000 children participating in Hockey Canada programs and 475,000 children participating in Canada Soccer programs would be impacted. We believe the impact would result in either cancellation of these programs, because they would be cost prohibitive to Hockey Canada and Canada Soccer, or fewer children and youth being able to afford to participate in these programs.