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Report: Kobe Bryant turns $6 million sports drink investment into $200 million

Kobe Bryant won an Academy Award for the animated short based on his “Dear Basketball” retirement letter. (AP)
Kobe Bryant won an Academy Award for the animated short based on his “Dear Basketball” retirement letter. (AP)

Kobe Bryant purchased a 10 percent stake in sports drink BodyArmor back in 2014. And you best believe he is thankful he did.

On Tuesday, Coca-Cola announced it had purchased a minority stake in the drink. With the purchase, Bryant’s initial $6 million investment is now $200 million, according to ESPN’s Darren Rovell. And yes, you read that number correctly.

The drink, which was co-founded by Mike Repole who also co-founded smartwater and vitaminwater, is marketed as “natural” and “healthy,” which has made it a Gatorade competitor.

Bryant made $323 million over the course of his career, according to Rovell’s report. The same day he launched his Kobe Inc. company back in 2014, he also invested in BodyArmor. He is not the only athlete to do so.

James Harden, Mike Trout, Skylar Diggins-Smith and Dustin Johnson are listed on the company’s website as endorsers, among many others. Rovell reported that “as many as a dozen superstar athletes could also have stakes themselves in BodyArmor worth more than $1 million.”

This is just another one of Bryant’s post-playing days successes. There was the launching of his production company, Granity Studios. There was the winning of the animated short Oscar in 2018 for his “Dear Basketball” film.

And now there is this — an investment that has multiplied more than 30 times.

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