The Brooklyn Nets and the New York Liberty have become the first teams in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) to partner with a CBD company.
The teams, under the banner BSE Global, have signed a multiyear deal with Mynd Drinks. The company specializes in plant-based drinks that are free of THC but contain cannabidiol (CBD).
Mynd Drinks also has a partnership with Major League Baseball team the Chicago Cubs, which began in 2022
“This gives us an anchor for the East Coast in terms of exposure, marketing, and expansion,” MYND CEO Simon Allen told Bloomberg News. “We’ve had tons of opportunities to work with different teams, but what we really liked about both of the teams was they shared a lot of what our vision was.”
Last year the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association signed a collective bargaining agreement that removed marijuana from the league’s list of banned substances, while allowing players to invest in marijuana companies.
The contract allows players to “hold a direct or indirect ownership interest (whether controlling or non-controlling) in an entity that produces or sells CBD Products”. Players will also be allowed to invest in marijuana companies that are legal under state law even if they’re federally illegal, as long as the investment must be passive and players cannot have an ownership share of larger than 49%.
