Ineligible Man Downfield: Why the Cavs are betting on wine — and bringing fans back safely
Plus: Carlos Santana says goodbye for a second time.
The Cavs have an official vino.
A new partnership for the Cleveland Cavaliers was forged where so much of life has taken place since March: Zoom. It also involves a pandemic go-to for many: wine.
In October, the Cavs announced Nocking Point as the team’s official vino. The Cavs-Nocking Point partnership includes a Cavs-themed wine subscription (set to launch in the first quarter of 2021 with labels designed by local artists) and a Nocking Point wine bar at the street level of Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
According to Andrew Harding, the co-founder of the Walla Walla, Washington-based winery, the company’s March 2020 collaboration with actors Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis was what prompted the Cavs to reach out. That collaboration — an Oregon Pinot Noir appropriately called ‘QUARANTINE’ — helped raise money for COVID-19 responses charities. From there, Nocking Point hosted a handful of wine nights on Zoom for some of the Cavs’ key partners and then sponsored the team’s in-bubble workouts in September.
"It just evolved from this super positive, and yet informal, start to a relationship and we just got a really good feeling about each other,” Harding says. “And it moved more into a partnership discussion. Everything they were open to doing really checked all of the boxes for us and so here we are.”
“Wine has become a big buzz thing in the NBA,” says Shelly Cayette, the Cavs’ senior vice president of global partnerships. “It's become part of the culture of basketball, to be honest. So I do think there's a big opportunity for it to grow and you see a lot of the athletes getting into their own wine. And fans will follow. They get just as interested and curious about wine. There's a great opportunity to connect the dots there.”
Co-founded in 2012 by Harding and actor Stephen Amell, Nocking Point is best known for its collaborations with celebrities like Kutcher, Kunis, Amell, and Jason Momoa. In many collaborations, Nocking Point works with celebrities to develop their own wine and sell it with some of the proceeds going to charity. In Cleveland, part of the proceeds will go to the Greater Cleveland Food Bank.
“Now we've associated the Cleveland Cavaliers with a brand like Nocking Point that has great wine and that customers love and that it's paired with charity and fighting hunger and supporting the Cleveland food bank,” Cayette says. “There, you have a three-way partnership that makes sense.”
Both Cayette and Harding say this partnership is the first of its kind. For Nocking Point specifically, it is the company’s first partnership with a professional sports team. With an individual celebrity, the process has a clear beginning and end for a single bottle of wine.
"With the Cavs, it's going to be more of an on-going deal,” Harding says. “We're going to be collaborating on several wines per year to put inside the arena, but also selling them through our platform to fans and friends and partners of the Cavs throughout Northeast Ohio.”
The in-arena wine bar is another of the Cavs’ creations. According to Harding, the Cavs initially approached him with the idea — including mockups for the bar — and everything built from there. The hope is that it will be open whenever fans are able to attend games again, whether that is this upcoming season or the next.
“Personally, I don’t think it's possible to really predict what exactly is to come,” Cayette says. "So we are planning for the longer term, but are ready to adjust as needed. We are planning that people will be back in the building. We feel confident that people will be in the building next season and that we are going to have to provide an experience for them. We are also preparing to do it in the safest way possible. So whatever the protocol is, we might take it another level safer.”
The Cavs announced last week that 300 fans would be able to attend games at the start of the 2020-21 season, making them one of the NBA teams to do so. That number was approved by the Ohio Department of Health with tickets “made available to family and associates of players and coaches,” as well as members of Wine & Gold United (the team’s season-ticket based membership club) and team partners.
“We are betting on people making their way back and we want to be there and be ready when they do,” Cayette says.
Cleveland’s return-to-venue plan also received third-party certification and rating by the Global Biorisk Advisory Council and the WELL Building Institute, two organizations that are working to prioritize health and safety for the public in a COVID-19 world. The Cavs’ plan was also reviewed and endorsed by the Cleveland Clinic.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with Yahoo Sports in early December that it won’t be until “the end of next summer” until arenas and stadiums can return to full capacity.
“We’re gonna be vaccinating the highest priority people [from] the end of December through January, February, March,” Fauci told Yahoo. “By the time you get to the general public, the people who’ll be going to the basketball games, who don’t have any underlying conditions, that’s gonna be starting at the end of April, May, June. So, it probably will be well into the end of the summer before you can really feel comfortable [with full sports stadiums] — if a lot of people get vaccinated. I don’t think we’re going to be that normal in July. I think it probably would be by the end of the summer.”
Wine, Harding and Cayette believe, will be something fans at games will want once they can go back safely. The idea is to get ahead of a coming trend.
“In just looking at it, beer seems to be heavy in sports,” Harding says. “Most arenas and stadiums, they've got either Miller, Coors or Budweiser in there. You've got Pepsi and Coke doing their thing. But I didn't see any wine companies doing anything meaningful in sports. And I know firsthand that beer is losing market share to wine and White Claws. And just seeing how fast wine consumption is going — especially among the Millennial generation which was the largest wine-drinking generation last year — there's white space for us to go capture.” — Chris Manning
Slam-sas City
It’s the end of an era. Again. Carlos Santana left Cleveland for the second time on Tuesday, signing with the Kansas City Royals.
The biggest difference between the 34-year-old’s 2021 exodus and his 2018 move to Philadelphia is that the first time felt like the team was cutting payroll in order to retain their young stars. This time, it happens before Cleveland likely trades its biggest star ever.
One does not have to do with the other. Santana was never returning to Cleveland after a down year, albeit a season that was made up of a single sample size by normal standards. The switch-hitter posted a very Santana-like .349 on-base percentage, though technically a career-low.
But a 91 OPS+ was not good enough to justify a $17.5 million option for a first baseman entering his age-35 season, even before a pandemic-affected world. The market agreed, as Santana got a two-year deal worth that same $17.5 million.
The state of the team makes things worse. Options at first base currently include Jake Bauers (who was so underwhelming in 2019 that Cleveland never plugged the lefty into their ailing outfield), Bobby Bradley, or Josh Naylor, who provides the team value in that he is a warm body in left field.
This seems like the appropriate time to not focus on Cleveland baseball, and instead just be happy for Santana, who will now play 81 games (hopefully) in a park he has posted a 1.077 OPS in a hearty 334 plate appearances. — Alex Hooper
ICYMI
Browns guard Wyatt Teller has been placed on the reserve COVID-19 list
Carlos Santana is headed to the Royals
Ben Axelrod dives into how the Browns could win the AFC North
Locked on Cavs on WKYC on Cavs big lineups
The Browns claimed Marvin Hall off of waivers
Cool info on Baker’s cleat design
Three Cleveland baseball team players are finalists for All-MLB honors
A bunch of Browns are excited about maybe being able to win the division
Some good Denzel Ward injury news
The Browns’ offensive line is very good
Nick Chubb 2020 Ed Block Courage Award recipient
Zack Meisel previews the Cleveland baseball team’s outfield options ($)
He also previewed the team’s bullpen ($)
One thing to read today
Who we are
Chris Manning: Site Manager at Fear the Sword, co-host of the Locked on Cavs podcast, words at places like Cleveland Magazine and Forbes. On Twitter @cwmwrites
Jordan Zirm: Social editor at @TheCheckdown. Formerly of ESPN Cleveland. Words at B/R, SB Nation and UPROXX. Host of The Rebuild podcast. On Twitter @clevezirm
Alex Hooper: Contributor at Fantasy Sports Insight. Former Cleveland Baseball Club beat writer for 92.3 the Fan (WKRK), and contributor at Sports Illustrated, Let’s Go Tribe, and the News-Herald. On Twitter @lexhooper.
Top photo courtesy of Nocking Point. Bottom photo: USA Today