The NBA’s secret wine society isn’t so secret anymore
EARLY on in Carmelo Anthony’s career in the National Basketball Association (NBA), his teammates made fun of him for drinking wine.
“Years ago, you didn’t see it. You was laughed at for drinking wine,” Anthony, a 10-time NBA All-Star, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “Now people want to explore.”
These days, basketball stars such as Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler and Kevin Durant are all full-blown wine geeks. Hall-of-famer Dwyane Wade has his own label. The NBA’s love affair with fermented grapes has intensified to the point that ESPN chronicled the league’s “secret wine society.”
That society has become big business, too. In April, the NBA signed its first-ever wine sponsorship deal, coming to a multiyear agreement with California’s Kendall-Jackson Winery.
Anthony developed a reputation as a wine guy during his time at the Denver Nuggets, where owner Stan Kroenke owned vineyards in the Napa Valley, and had more than a little influence over the beverage’s rise in cachet among pro basketball players over the course of his 19-year career.
Anthony and his longtime business partner Asani Swann have a wine label called VII(N) The Seventh Estate that launched in 2022. It’s now reaching into the higher-end sector, with a label called Ode to Soul that costs US$275 per bottle. It is the debut product of a new multiyear partnership with Constellation Brands’ Robert Mondavi Winery. The red wine is a blend of cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot.
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“We wanted to produce a premium quality wine,” said Swann. “And so we thought, what better way to do that than with one of the best and most traditional wine companies in the world?”
Anthony was active in business ventures during his NBA career and has kept that focus after his retirement from basketball last year. He partnered with Isos Capital in 2023 to form a fund focused on sports and has invested in companies such as sportsbook DraftKings and ticketing app SeatGeek over the years.
The platform aimed to provide growth capital in several categories, including leagues and teams, through investments of as much as US$100 million.
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Wine, however, was an avocation that eventually became part of his portfolio.
“I realised I need to stop spending so much money on consuming this wine and figure out what is the right business model in this industry,” Anthony said. BLOOMBERG
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