Major League Baseball (MLB) has become the first North American professional sports league to give the green light to CBD sponsorships. Beginning next season, the league and its clubs will be free to accept sponsorships from CBD companies as long as certain conditions are met. It is not clear how many sponsorships will be waiting for teams in 2023, but at least a few companies have expressed interest in getting on board.

North American sports leagues have shied away from CBD to this point, primarily because of the negative connotations surrounding cannabis and THC. MLB has been reluctant to embrace the CBD industry, but in 2021 they said they were only waiting for the market to mature before opening the door. They apparently believe the time has come.

• Only Certified Products

The first of the two conditions teams must meet in order to accept a sponsorship is NSF International certification. NSF International is an organization the leagues have relied on in the past for other testing and certification issues. MLB will insist that any companies looking for a sponsorship deal have their products tested and certified by the organization.

Ostensibly, the testing will ensure that marketed CBD products are both safe and THC-free. At the very least, any THC the products do contain will have to test below the federal 0.3% threshold for legal CBD.

The other condition is permission from the Commissioner. This is a curious condition inasmuch as we don’t know how much power the Commissioner will have to deny sponsorship deals, or on what grounds they could be denied. There will undoubtedly be some ironing out of that particular provision in the months and years ahead.

• Possibly a Patch

Exactly how MLB teams will handle CBD sponsorships is unclear. There are already rumors of teams having sponsor patches attached to player uniforms. MLB has already given the go ahead on patches for other sponsorships, so it would seem that CBD sponsors would have to be given the same opportunity.

In addition to uniform patches, there are plenty of other possibilities:

• Stadium advertisements
• On-field advertisements
• Promotional giveaways
• In-stadium sales
• Team or player endorsements.

Essentially, CBD sponsorships could end up looking like any other kind of sponsorship throughout the sport. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to differentiate CBD from any other product category.

• Good for the Industry

Striking a deal with MLB will likely prove quite good for the CBD industry. The worldwide CBD market is already worth some $5 billion, with some liberal estimates suggesting it could be approaching ten times that amount by 2028. Professional sports sponsorships could play a huge role in propelling the market to new heights.

How will it play in states that take a more conservative approach to cannabis? In Utah, there are slightly more than a dozen medical cannabis pharmacies serving the entire state. Pure Utah is one of them. But state residents can buy legal CBD products at grocery stores, corner pharmacies, convenience stores, etc. Baseball fans in the Beehive State will likely respond very well to MLB’s CBD advertising.

Expect some of the more conservative states to begin regulating CBD marketing and labeling more aggressively though. They will do so in response to numerous recent reports showing labels are misleading. Lawmakers are going to want to make sure that their residents are not buying one thing when they are expecting something completely different.

At any rate, the time has come for MLB to open the door to CBD sponsorships. Now the race is on to see which potential suitors can get their products certified first.