Major League Baseball has signed a CBD sponsor, becoming the first of the four major sports leagues to do so. The League will team up with the Colorado CBD company Charlotte’s Web on a multi-year contract which will feature a line of MLB-branded products.
MLB noted the deal will provide, “increased CBD visibility to their professional athletes, millions of fans and communities.”
In an interview with Yahoo Finance, Charlotte’s Web CEO Jacques Tortoroli said the deal was a “game changer,” and, “MLB’S decision reflects what fans want today by bringing botanical wellness options to support everyday lives around mental wellness, particularly staying calm under pressure, recovery after exercise, maintaining a focus when it counts and sleeping. These are players that are on the road 81 games in a season, seven months a year and we really believe that having balance between the mental and physical health is super important.”
He went on, “I think it’s a game changer for us, and particularly given 180 million fans, all of their social platforms that we now have access to a microphone and the microphone’s going to be used for education, telling consumers, telling athletes and trainers, what CBD is and what it isn’t, it isn’t marijuana, its hemp.”
The business is named for Charlotte Figi, a young girl with Dravet syndrome, who took CBD to prevent seizures. Tortoroli said, “It really gave her life back and her family’s life back.” Charlotte passed away when she was 13, however she inspired the name of the medical cannabis strain named Charlotte’s web.
Tortoroli thinks it will be a matter of time before all of the other major sports leagues make their own CBD deals. While no other major sports league has a CBD deal, the attitudes in major league sports toward cannabis have been changing.
The NFL has stopped suspending players for positive marijuana tests, and has even begun studying the use of cannabis in pain management. The NBA stopped testing for cannabis in 2020, and the NHL eliminated any penalty for testing positive for it.
Tortoroli also notes now that the league has made this deal, it also opens the door to individual teams making their own similar CBD deals, adding, “I strongly believe that influencers are not just paid spokespeople, it will be with someone who’s credible, authentic and uses the products.”
