Cannabis Brand Partners With NBA G League Team

The partnership between JARS Cannabis and the Grand Rapids Gold is now in its third year, focusing on community engagement initiatives in March 2026. These activations include a "Gold Scores → You Stash" retail promotion where fans receive a free product if the team scores 2 points, and a public 3v3 basketball tournament with a $4,000 cash prize. This collaboration reflects a significant shift in the sports world, particularly in basketball. The NBA's 2023 collective bargaining agreement was a watershed moment, removing cannabis from the league's banned substances list. This policy change, which took effect July 1, 2023, allows players to invest in cannabis companies and, for the first time, promote CBD brands. The door for such partnerships was opened league-wide following years of evolving policies. The NBA had already paused random testing for marijuana during the 2019-20 season and continued that policy until the new labor agreement made it official. This paved the way for the first-ever CBD sponsorship in the NBA in February 2024, when the Brooklyn Nets and the WNBA's New York Liberty signed a multi-year deal with Mynd Drinks, a CBD beverage company. Beyond basketball, other major sports leagues have also been embracing cannabis-related sponsorships. Major League Baseball began permitting teams to sell CBD sponsorships in 2022, provided the products are NSF certified to be free of psychoactive THC. The UFC entered the space even earlier, signing a multi-million dollar global partnership with CBD brand Love Hemp in 2021. This trend extends to other sports as well, with the United Pickleball Association naming Trulieve as its first official cannabis sponsor in 2024. This broader acceptance is mirrored by public opinion; a 2025 survey found that 60% of NBA fans and 55% of MLB and NFL fans find it acceptable for CBD brands to sponsor sports teams. While financial terms of these deals are rarely disclosed, the growing number of partnerships indicates a new and expanding revenue stream for sports leagues and teams. As the legal cannabis market matures, and with a majority of sports fans expressing support, such collaborations are poised to become more commonplace across the professional sports landscape.