Can Mike Tyson Become a Heavyweight in the New York Marijuana Industry?
The retired boxer’s foray into the cannabis market in New York is a test of how far a celebrity can carry a brand.
On a recent weekend, fans of Mike Tyson, one of the greatest boxers ever, lined up by the hundreds at dispensaries in New York for a chance to meet him and to support his latest business move: selling weed in his home state.
With the recent release of his Tyson 2.0 line, Mr. Tyson, 57, has become the most visible newcomer of the celebrity wave in the state’s cannabis industry. Although actors, athletes and musicians have been cashing in on weed with product lines and endorsement deals over the last decade as legalization has swept the United States, the tide is just rising in New York. And Mr. Tyson is one of the biggest names yet to test how far fame can carry a brand in a market that is shaping up to be one of the largest and most competitive in the world.
At the Conbud dispensary on the Lower East Side, he greeted fans with handshakes and hugs as they bought from a selection of smokable flower packaged with names like Tiger Mintz and Knockout OG. He playfully barked as he posed with a dog named Dottie and her owner, and he complimented a woman who, against the advice of her sons, wore a “Chrithmith” shirt making light of his lisp.
Within a few hours, the pair of dispensaries that introduced his cannabis brand to New York had sold more than $40,000 of his flower and expanded their foothold in a market dominated by unlicensed competitors. And that was without the popular gummies shaped to look like Evander Holyfield’s ear, which Mr. Tyson infamously bit during a 1997 bout — one of only six fights that he lost.
“The cannabis is just doing incredible,” Mr. Tyson said in an interview. “You can’t even believe it.”
The Brooklyn-born Mr. Tyson is bringing his Tyson 2.0 line to New York. It is already among the most popular weed products in California. Credit...Adrienne Grunwald for The New York Times
Mr. Tyson at a Tyson 2.0 cannabis event at J. Bespoke. The former boxer has credited marijuana for helping him turn his life around.Credit...Adrienne Grunwald for The New York Times
Casting his new release as a homecoming of sorts, Mr. Tyson, who was born and raised in Brooklyn, joined other New Yorkers banking on their local bona fides. They include Method Man, a member of the influential hip-hop collective known as the Wu-Tang Clan, and Abby Rockefeller, an ecologist and the scioness of one of the most powerful families in America. Ms. Rockefeller is among the biggest investors in Hudson Cannabis, the producer that grows Mr. Tyson’s weed on her farm in the Hudson Valley.
Cannabis brands backed by big names have drawn mixed reception. While they tend to outsell traditional brands, they cannot compete with the biggest brands that are selling millions of dollars of weed each month. In California, the nation’s largest market, just nine of the 30 best-selling brands are owned or backed by celebrities, including Tyson 2.0, Houseplant by the actor Seth Rogen and Mirayo by the musician Carlos Santana, according to Headset, a data firm specializing in cannabis.
Mitchell Laferla, one of the firm’s analysts, said that what ultimately drives consumers in newer markets like New York is value, and that’s where celebrity brands struggle. The consumers who are the biggest spenders are looking for the highest potency at the lowest price, and celebrity brands vary in quality while generally carrying a higher price tag. In California, the average cost of a typical 3.5 gram bag of flower is around $23.14, while Tyson 2.0 sells for about $28.44, a 23 percent difference.
Tyson 2.0 Mike Bites on a table at a Tyson 2.0 cannabis event at J. Bespoke in Manhattan in December.Credit...Adrienne Grunwald for The New York Times
Tyson 2.0’s success can be credited to Mr. Tyson’s hands-on approach to customers and his company, the business’s aggressive expansion into new markets like New York and Maryland, and its product quality, Mr. Laferla said.
“Your name may get someone to try it once,” he said. “But your brand and the quality of your product is what’s going to get people coming back.”
Yuvraj Singh, the president and chief executive of Strain Stars on Long Island, said customers are already returning for Mr. Tyson’s weed. His customers bought $30,000 of Tyson 2.0 flower on the first day of sales, and the cannabis line is already one of the store’s five best-sellers.
“The word’s gotten out that it’s a very nice, clean high,” he said.
Coss Marte, the co-owner and chief executive of Conbud, said his dispensary has also had repeat customers after selling $10,000 of Tyson 2.0 in an hour, roughly as much as the dispensary typically makes in a day.
Mr. Tyson has emphasized the therapeutic role of cannabis in his transformation from a brash boxing champion to a disciplined businessman. Less than 10 years ago, he said in an interview, he was broke and struggling with a cocaine addiction. Now, he owns one of the most successful celebrity cannabis brands in the country.
He said his goal is to solidify his legacy as a trailblazer in cannabis. “That’s more important to me than making money,” he said.
Mr. Tyson was born poor in Brooklyn before he discovered a talent for boxing at a reform school upstate. He quickly became a teenage phenomenon, and ultimately won 50 of his professional bouts, mostly by knockout.
But his reputation was sullied by his antics in the ring, like biting Mr. Holyfield’s ear, and legal troubles, including a three-year stint in prison for a rape that he still denies. He revealed his cocaine addiction in 2014, and has credited cannabis with helping him to get clean. He now lives in Las Vegas and owns a cannabis ranch in California.
His personal narrative appeals to many of his fans, who seem eager to support him. “He’s had a hard time, and I resonate with that,” said Tony Pedroza, 26, a boxing fan from Brooklyn who lined up to see Mr. Tyson in Manhattan.
Moneefa Jones Tucker and her husband, Troy Tucker, drove from Bethlehem, Pa., to support him. She said they had followed Mr. Tyson since the start of his boxing career, and they admired how he had evolved.
“His head is now nice and calm with the weed,” she said. “This fits him, and he looks great, too.”
Moneefa Jones Tucker, a fan of Mr. Tyson from Bethlehem, Penn., said she came to Mr. Tyson’s event to support the former boxer’s expanding business. Credit...Adrienne Grunwald for The New York Times
Coss Marte, a Conbud co-founder, said his dispensary recently sold $10,000 of Tyson 2.0 products in an hour, roughly as much as the dispensary typically makes in a day. Credit...Adrienne Grunwald for The New York Times
Kristina Lopez, the co-founder and chief executive of House of Puff, an artistic accessories brand, said celebrities can have an effect in cannabis far beyond the cash register as “secret weapons” in the fight to legalize and normalize cannabis use.
The rapper Jay-Z, for instance, has helped the public to reimagine cannabis as part of a life well lived with Monogram, his line of luxury weed, she said. And Cynthia Nixon, the actress most famous for her role on “Sex and the City,” was a quintessential force in promoting legalization as a racial justice issue during her primary campaign against former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in 2018.
“Their real power isn’t just in sales figures,” Ms. Lopez said. “It’s in how they can change the game about what people think about cannabis, and influence market dynamics, and even potentially influence legislation.”
Even high-profile politicians have joined the industry as advisers, investors and lobbyists. In 2018, John Boehner, the Ohio Republican who once served as speaker of the United States House of Representatives, joined the board of Acreage Holdings, a multistate cannabis company with four medical dispensaries in New York. Mr. Boehner, who was firmly against legalizing cannabis during his 12 terms in Congress, has said it was time for a shift in federal policy. (At the time, such a change would have netted him a $20 million payday.)
It was the opportunity to raise awareness about how the criminalization of marijuana fueled racial inequality that drew Fred Brathwaite, better known as Fab 5 Freddy, to the industry. In the 1980s he was a street artist who counted Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol as friends, and he later became the host of “Yo! MTV Raps,” a popular cable show that took hip-hop from the streets and broadcast it into millions of American households.
Now, he is a co-owner and the chief executive officer of B Noble, a weed brand named after Bernard Noble. Mr. Noble, who is Black, became a national symbol of the nation’s draconian drug laws after he was sentenced to 13 years in prison in Louisiana over the equivalent of two joints.
Some cannabis market experts say consumers in newer markets are drawn to value, and that’s where celebrity brands, which can be more expensive, struggle. Credit...Adrienne Grunwald for The New York Times
B Noble, created in partnership with Curaleaf, the largest cannabis company in the country, sells weed packaged as a pair of pre-rolled joints in a nod to Mr. Noble’s arrest. Ten percent of the profits go to organizations serving people who are re-entering society from prison. Mr. Brathwaite said the company has donated $400,000 so far.
“This is how I think more people should function,” he said. “It could make the world a better place, as trite as that sounds.”
