Fourth and Twenty: Cannabis and Sports
I use this week's column to take a look at what has happened when sports and cannabis collide.
If you’ve watched any amount of sports in the past five or so years, you’ve probably noticed that athletes are quickly becoming walking billboards for a wide variety of products and companies. Uniforms in the “big five” American sport leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS) are now covered in sponsors, sometimes for vices like alcohol, sports gambling, and sugary snacks.
Sports teams are always looking for new sources of advertising revenue, and dispensaries and growers are always looking for new ways to make their brands stick out amongst a sea of competitors. So when will cannabis companies be allowed to join the fray? It’s complicated, but let’s take a look.
Cannabis Sponsorships
It was somewhat surprising this week to hear that a cannabis brand is sponsoring a collegiate sports tournament (albeit a relatively minor competition that is out of the grasps of the NCAA and it’s new anti-cannabis president), but it’s just the latest development in a growing trend of weed companies sponsoring sports teams, leagues, and events. Here are some of the more notable moments where cannabis companies have entered the sports world:
