Anheuser-Busch’s new sponsorship of Vail Resorts Inc. makes it the exclusive beer sponsor at four premier Colorado mountain resorts - Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone. The deal will also give the brewer access to 6.2 million visitors every year. It’s an opportunity to promote Bud Light in a wide cross-section of adult beer drinkers, including the sports-minded folks that comprise Bud Light’s core demographic

“We’ve been looking to add (Vail) for a long time,” said Kathy Casso, senior director of sports marketing at Anheuser-Busch Inc. When Coors dropped the sponsorship, “we finally had a chance to make a run at them.”

Vail properties represent about 10 percent of ski visits in the United States every year.

Anheuser-Busch has had a long-standing strategy of ski-event sponsorships. It backed traveling ski and snowboard tours in the 1990s. Those events were broadcast on ESPN. But Anheuser-Busch noticed that it missed a lot of marketing opportunities once the tours would leave town. So, its strategy evolved to include sponsorship of a group of “Big 12″ resorts spread across the country.

At Vail, the brewer will sponsor big events like Vail Snow Days — a four-day bash with concerts — and Keystone’s Mardi Gras celebration. Plus, A-B’s local beer wholesalers will be staging events nearly every week near the resorts, said Casso. And in far-flung states like Texas, California and New York, A-B will give consumers the chance to win free lift tickets and ski packages.

“There’s a tremendous amount of value in taking that association with Bud Light and Vail…all around the country,” said Casso.