KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Patrick Mahomes poured himself a large black coffee, opened a sugar packet and poured it in.
As a rookie quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs in 2017, Mahomes developed a late-blooming love for caffeine, one born of necessity.
“When you get those Andy Reid installs, man, they’re two or three hours at a time and some are late in the day,” Mahomes said, grinning, as he explained a typical offensive meeting with the Chiefs coach. “So in those meetings, I wouldn’t say I was falling asleep, but I was definitely losing focus … so I kind of started drinking coffee.”
Mahomes’ frequent trips to the black-drip machine, along with his ritual of mixing in sugar and anything else that would help the taste, caught the eye of starting quarterback Alex Smith, who warned the rookie about the negative effects the additional sweeteners could have on his health and performance.
Mahomes listened and cut the sugar. “I finally found a way there, but I didn’t enjoy it,” Mahomes said. “It was like I was drinking it just for the functionality of it.”
Nearly eight years later, Mahomes is attempting to turn his coffee-dependent lifestyle into a big business, partnering with beverage industry veteran Michael Fedele in the development and launch of a ready-to-drink cold brew called Throne Sport Coffee.
“I’ve always been interested in business just from watching when my dad [former MLB pitcher Pat Mahomes] played sports and then watching other athletes like LeBron or Michael Jordan, Alex Rodriguez, these guys, is that as much as you have success in sports, business it’s kind of the same feel,” Mahomes said. “It’s competition.”
The beverage industry is among the most competitive categories in consumer goods, according to John Craven, the founder and CEO of BevNet.com, a leading publication on the industry.
“It’s super cutthroat,” Craven said. “There’s hundreds of new brands entering the beverage industry alone every single year. So you have to have something special and unique. …There’s way more failures than successes in this space.”
Fedele, who worked closely with Kobe Bryant and his sports drink brand BodyArmor, admits such a competitive industry is not for the faint of heart, which is one of many reasons he says Mahomes, a three-time Super Bowl champion and two-time NFL MVP, makes for a great business partner.
Mahomes, 29, is the lead investor and No. 2 stakeholder behind Fedele, who he began working with during the 2023 offseason before the brand launched in May 2024.
“He’s very, very much involved in what we’re doing here,” Fedele said. “I can confidently say that he’s engaged on a weekly basis specific to updates I provide.”
Mahomes understands competition. As an athlete in his prime, he understands the need for a healthy option, which his drink has with low calories, low sugar, natural caffeine, flavors and sweeteners, B vitamins and branched-chain amino acids. And as a football player, father of three and businessperson, he runs on caffeine.
INSIDE A SWANKY rooftop restaurant in Kansas City, Mahomes arrives on a hot summer evening to host retail executives at an event for his cold brew.
This type of gathering is an industry norm, where retailers learn more about your product and the idea behind it. But this evening, for the roughly 30 people in attendance, it isn’t exactly normal.
Donning a crisp white designer shirt, stylish khaki-colored pants and fresh white sneakers, Mahomes exudes celebrity as he enters the space filled with businesspeople from national grocery and convenience store chains.
“When you come [to these events], you get to taste the brand, you get to interact with the people that sell the brand,” said Anna Stoermer, the chief retail and merchandising officer at Hy-Vee, a Midwestern grocery chain. “And then you get to hear the passion of the people that are behind it.”
All eyes turn to Mahomes when Peloton instructor and motivational coach Alex Toussaint introduces him to the group ahead of a Q&A session.
“There’s always nerves,” Mahomes told ESPN before the event. “I mean, I even have nerves going in every game I play. … I say if you’re not nervous about it, then you don’t truly love it.”
With a multitude of football accolades, Mahomes is an expert on the field. And although he’s a spokesperson for seven companies (State Farm, Adidas, Doritos, T-Mobile, Subway, Coors Light and Invisalign), as well as a minority owner of three pro teams (Kansas City Royals, Sporting Kansas City and Kansas City Current), this is an arena in which he’s still something of a novice.
For Fedele, picking Mahomes as a partner was somewhat of a shot in the dark. “I just observed so many professional athletes and active adults in general just drinking coffee and oftentimes black coffee, and folks wanted to get the caffeine and the energy but without the sugar in the calories,” Fedele said.
Mahomes receives hundreds of inquiries a week, according to a person familiar with his business interests, with only about 10% making it to him. Another .01% of those pitches actually get the green light.
“I’ve always been very interested in what I put into my body, and coffee’s been a big part of that,” Mahomes said. “So when Fedele came to me with Throne Sport Coffee … it was kind of a match made in heaven.”
Mahomes, in a candid conversation about his business interests, made clear: He’s not just here to be the face of a brand.
“I’m here to grow the whole entire business,” he said.
Throughout the 2023 season, as the Chiefs made their way to the Super Bowl, Mahomes tested the product behind the scenes before it was commercialized. He needed to make sure it provided the right jolt without the jitters when he took the field. He has studied ingredient lists and the findings of nutrition panels.
And he has suffered some ribbing from his teammates — while also stocking their refrigerators.
“Obviously all of the quarterbacks drank coffee,” Mahomes said. “So I let them all try it … and they would give me their opinions.”
Honest opinions?
“For sure, I mean, you’re in a quarterback room — you’re in the football locker room — so they’re going to razz you a little bit regardless. They definitely gave their input, and I wanted the input.”
Now, Mahomes’ drink is a staple inside the Chiefs’ quarterback room. “We have a rule: If you take a coffee, you have to replace it,” he said, referring to the meeting room refrigerator. “On the wall, we have the coffee boxes right there, and so if you don’t replace it, you have to run a half gasser — that includes coaches. Coaches have to run, too.”
After a 15-minute Q&A session, Mahomes meets each guest in attendance, some of whom brought their kids because they couldn’t resist the opportunity to meet him.
At 7 p.m., Mahomes is whisked out of the room. It’s a hard out for Mahomes, with three small children and a promise to be home for bedtime.
But the 30-minute opportunity for those included provided an opportunity that otherwise couldn’t be replicated.
“He’s invested in it, he tastes it, and he gives feedback on it, and he drinks it,” Stoermer said. “The coolest thing for me from Patrick’s portion was telling us that he was asked about the formulation of the product. So how did it taste? How did it make you feel? What did it do to your performance? I would not have known those things about this brand … but hearing it straight from Patrick was really cool.”
“We have a lot of different brands that come pitch a lot of stuff to us,” said Joe Haus, a sales manager at QuikTrip. “There’s no ambassador that stands behind their product like that.”
Craven said it’s this kind of appearance by Mahomes that can help his coffee find success, a benchmark that typically takes about 10 years in the industry.
Over the past year, Throne Sport Coffee has grown from being carried in 3,500 stores across 25 states to 6,500 stores, and it recently began a national rollout at Whole Foods Market.
“It totally just wouldn’t work if it was like they just paid a lot of money to have him be an endorser,” Craven said. “That being said, I think the obvious thing that’s sort of going to be a challenge is just how do you connect whatever Super Bowl champion quarterback to coffee? What’s the connection there? It’s not as obvious if he were slinging, ‘Hey, these are, I don’t know, the shoes or the gloves that I wear and you should buy them.’ That is logical, right?”
ENTERING HIS NINTH NFL season, Mahomes’ mindset is to learn the latest edition of his team and forge a path back to the Super Bowl.
He provides no timeline to when he thinks his pro career will run out.
When it does, he wants this to be where he lands.
“This is something that whenever I’m done with football, I want it to be my life,” Mahomes said.
He knows there’s no guarantee for success — and that ultimately, he can be the best marketer out there, but if the product doesn’t taste good, it doesn’t matter who he is.
Mahomes is asked if he’s nervous that people won’t like this product or that the industry types gathered for this event won’t want to sell it.
“I’m going to have nerves going into those meetings,” Mahomes said. “But I think more than that, just kind of like when I’m playing on the football field, I believe in myself, I believe in the product, and so I believe if we get it in front of people, we’ll continue to have more and more success.”
