Several luminaries in the sports business and media spaces are coming together to put their own spin on the morning routine.
Fara Leff (Klutch Sports Group COO), Paul Rivera (SpringHill Co. chief brand officer and co-creator of “The Shop”), David Creech (Adopt co-founder and Nike design veteran), and Andrew and Nate Forbes (The Forbes Company and former minority owners of the Cleveland Cavaliers) have founded Beekeeper Coffee, a new ready-to-drink coffee brand.
“We took a long look at the current marketplace and saw an opportunity to leverage our expertise and our network to bring a new voice to coffee,” Leff said in a statement.
The Beekeeper team hopes to bring in casual coffee drinkers through three cold brew latte flavors — vanilla, mocha, and caramel — as well as a Double Black cold brew. All of Beekeeper’s products include a drop of honey.
“We are so proud of not only how we came together as a group, [but also] what we’ve created as a brand [and] that the coffee actually tastes good,” Rivera tells Front Office Sports, adding that he was not a coffee drinker before the project. “I feel like I’m a little bit of a bandwagon coffee fan.”
Coffee has proven to be a popular investment among those in the sports and sports-adjacent industries.
After selling cups of java in the 2020 NBA Orlando Bubble, Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler turned BigFace coffee into a legitimate company. Aaron Rodgers’ investment firm RX3 Growth Partners, as well as Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez, have invested in Super Coffee. In 2019, tennis legend Serena Williams and music mogul Jay-Z invested in Indonesian coffee chain Kopi Kenangan.
Rivera notes that while Beekeeper has athlete investors within the company — to be announced at a later time — the ownership group wants the coffee to do the talking first.
“What Beekeeper will not be is a brand led by celebrity,” says Rivera. “We obviously have a ton of celebrity and athlete and talent connections, and there will and may be some opportunities for us to partner with them. But we wanted to make sure the brand stood on its own.”
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