Brooklyn Nets And New York Liberty Become First NBA And WNBA Teams To Partner With CBD Company

The Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty have entered into partnerships with a CBD beverage company—the first teams in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), respectively, to forge deals with the cannabis industry.

The New York-based clubs are partnering with Mynd Drinks, a hemp-based CBD sparkling beverage company that also made history last year when it became an official partner of the Major League Baseball (MLB) team the Chicago Cubs.

Now, months after the NBA removed marijuana from the banned substances list for players and also freed them up to invest in and promote cannabis companies, the first team has signed a multi-year contract to make Mynd its official wellness and recovery drink partner, Bloomberg first reported.

Details about the terms of the agreement with the Brooklyn Nets, as well as WNBA’s New York Liberty, have not been disclosed. But with the Chicago Cubs deal, the partnership involves marketing the CBD drinks in signage promoting them through in-game features

The deals represent some of the latest examples of the mainstreaming of hemp and CBD since the crop and its derivatives were federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill. Multiple professional athletics organizations have contributed to that normalization, both with corporate partnerships and by revising cannabis policies for athletes amid the state marijuana legalization movement.

While advocates have welcomed these changes, there’s been criticism of WADA over its ongoing cannabis ban. Members of a panel within the agency said in an opinion piece last August that marijuana use by athletes violates the “spirit of sport,” making them unfit role models whose potential impairment could put others at risk.

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