Al Harrington’s Wellness Line, National Basketball Players Association Team Up To Provide Athletes Wider Access To CBD, Recovery Tech

Former NBA star and entrepreneur Al Harrington is empowering the growth of Black ownership within the cannabis industry by partnering with the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) to bring topicals and recovery tech to the masses.

According to Boardroom, the former NBPA member and CEO of Harrington Wellness recently sealed an equity partnership for his brand’s performance-based wellness and recovery line, re+PLAY, with the basketball players association.

“re+Play’s partnership with the NBPA will provide consumers with a wealth of trusted, technology-driven products, to help them recover like a pro,” Harrington said in a statement.

“As we move into the next phase of the re+PLAY brand with our strategic partners at Amazon, the NBPA, and Walmart, we are excited to once again reimagine how we help athletes of all levels recover from pain with CBD and other innovative technology.”

The multi-year partnership aims to provide wider access to the brand’s line of CBD-based recovery products at retail giants like Amazon and Walmart. These products include an array of topicals (made using a triple-tested process with hemp grown in the USA, and free of heavy metals, pesticides, and harmful microbes), and kinesiology tape.

With the announcement of the new partnership, re+PLAY is offering CBD-based recovery creams, available now online through the brand’s website. Amazon and Walmart will follow soon with the new products.

Harrington, who is also the co-founder and CEO of cannabis company Viola, realized the power of cannabis in his own healing process having had to undergo 12 surgeries during his 16-year basketball career, per the re+PLAY website. He would later venture into the world of cannabis- based recovery.

At the start of the year, Viola, the leading Black-owned multinational cannabis brand, successfully closed a $13 million equity funding round with plans to expand into new markets, including Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, and more, per a press release.

As BLACK ENTERPRISE previously reported, Harrington has been on a mission to “pave the way for more minority ownership in the cannabis industry” through his national conglomerate, Village. Established in 2019, the largest national conglomerate for Black-owned cannabis brands has actively expanded market shares of the cannabis industry owned by Black people.