Less than 20 years ago, smoking weed could cost a professional motorcycle racer his job. Today, marijuana may keep some riders in a job. The growing marijuana industry is now sponsoring motorsports athletes.

While watching the X Games this year, I was surprised to see a number of marijuana-related companies’ logos adorning the bikes and gear of several high-profile freestyle motocross riders. With the rise of legal weed, the influx of money coming into the industry, and increasing social acceptance of marijuana use, it makes sense that these weed-related outfits would be going after more mainstream audiences via athlete sponsorships.

The WeedMaps logo is a simple "wm," seen here on Jimmy “Hillsack” Hill's helmet. Plenty of fans might never know the sponsorship has anything to do with the growing marijuana industry. Photo provided by WeedMaps.

One company leading the charge is WeedMaps, a website and app that describes itself as “Yelp for weed” (marijuana delivery services and dispensaries). Founded in 2008, the Irvine, California-based website now employs around 500 full-time staffers, reportedly receives roughly two million monthly visitors and generates tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue. Some of WeedMaps' revenue stream is going to sponsorships of extreme/motorsports athletes. WeedMaps currently sponsors around 20 athletes, though the company is taking steps to increase that number. FMX riders backed by the website include Tom Parsons, Jimmy Hill, and Stephanie Pietz, the latter of whom also races flat track (and models).

Marketing, marijuana, money, motorsports

What's the goal of such sponsorships? WeedMaps Sports Director Eric Sorensen said it's about continuing to build acceptance.

“You can be injured, or recovering from, let’s say, a Supercross injury, and you can be on Oxycodone or Vicodin and you’d be able to ride the next morning," said Sorensen. "If you’re on CBD or a little bit of THC (active ingredients in marijuana), you’re banned from riding. So riders don’t really have a holistic, non-narcotic choice of medication. We want to help legalize cannabis and help give people more choice in their medicine and we thought that with motorsports, and action sports period, where injuries happen all the time, riders have to not only recuperate from their injury, they have to mentally and physically recover from the medication they’re prescribed.”

Does that mean WeedMaps is promoting the use and benefits of THC or CBD to motorsports athletes?

"I wouldn’t say promoting," Sorensen explained. "I’d call it bringing awareness to it. WeedMaps itself doesn’t touch the plant. We’re pushing policy and trying to educate the public."

He says the reception from the motocross world has been generally warm. Some riders have backed off because of relationships with other sponsors, Sorensen said, "But pretty much every rider we’ve spoken with has said ‘it’s about time’."

Public acceptance, yes; sponsorship, yes; use, maybe

The sponsorships may inevitably follow the influx of money and growing public acceptance of marijuana. Tom Adams, managing director of BDS Analytics (an outfit that tracks analytics in the pot industry), claims that “cannabusiness” raked in almost $9 billion in sales in 2017 and he expects that number will almost certainly skyrocket with the legalization of the plant. Meanwhile, a 2018 report by BDS Analytics found that 29 percent of Californians are “consumers,” up from 23 percent in 2017. Just as important from a marketing perspective, the number people the study calls “rejectors,” i.e. Golden State residents who oppose the plant, continues to decline, down to 38 percent of the state’s population.

But can a motorsports athlete, like say a Supercross rider, use marijuana and still be allowed to race? Like the laws pertaining to marijuana in the United States, it's not so clear. The World Anti-Doping Agency, which governs drug use in sports, prohibits natural or synthetic cannabinoids but allows another active ingredient of marijuana, cannabidiol, commonly called CBD. Sorensen said he has heard of cases where a rider with a prescription for CBD has still been prevented from competing, however. Sorensen said this is where the "awareness" aspect of the sponsorship comes in.

"It’s gotten to the point where you don’t have to be a user to support cannabis reform," said Sorensen. "Five or six of our athletes don’t smoke weed at all.”

Motorsports' mixed history with sponsors

Historically, the MX world hasn’t been very kind to marijuana users. Despite earning a trio of national motocross championships and a Supercross championship, Jeff Emig was fired by the Kawasaki Factory Team in August of 1999 over a marijuana-related arrest in Lake Havasu, Arizona. Ronnie Lechien also lost his place on Team Honda when he got caught with pot at an airport in Japan. Some still feel there's no place in the sport for marijuana.

“There are no potheads in professional motocross, period," stated Marty Smith, a three-time national champion and the dean of a motocross clinic for 30 years. “In the 40 years that I’ve been racing, teaching, and delegating motocross, I’ve only seen occasional pot users. If top local pros in any given area are regular stoners, it couldn’t possibly say much for the talent in that particular state or province.”

If you want to look like you have marijuana-related sponsorship, you can buy this Colby Raha replica graphics kit. Defy Graphics photo.

Marijuana is not the first sponsor that didn't seem to fit with racing, however. Before the current energy drink era, tobacco and alcohol companies were the primary sponsors in many forms of racing. Racing ran on tobacco money as much as it ran on gasoline until restrictions on advertising eventually eliminated it and the sport grew richer and more professional because of tobacco money. Today, racing could be seriously upended if the Monsters and Red Bulls pulled their support, and there are some entities, like the American Medical Association (the "other AMA," if you will) that would like to see restrictions on marketing of energy drinks.

Just as some can make the argument that marijuana has no place in motorsports, others feel marijuana does have a place, especially considering riders’ propensity for injury and the drawbacks (and wildly addictive nature) of some of the other pain-relief options available. Tyler Bereman makes that case strongly, based on his own personal experience with a terrible injury, in this WeedMaps video.

As one of the first marijuana-related companies to get behind motorsport athletes, WeedMaps is something of a trail blazer (emphasis on “blazer”). More recently, Southern California vape company Brass Knuckles sponsored its first rider, Colby Raha.

As the industry grows and the money flows, this is more likely to be a trend than a one-off fluke.