Festivals, sporting events and venues should see the category as “additive” and not detrimental to liquor sales, per Brianda Gonzalez, founder of the influential NA retailer The New Bar in Venice, Calif.

“There’s a lot of cross-purchasing that happens, so NA doesn’t cannibalize anything,” said Gonzalez, whose brand may make a second Coachella appearance in 2024. “This isn’t something to feel threatened by, and it’s actually quite beneficial from a business perspective to embrace it.”

No more ‘penalty box’

Athletic Brewing, which has grown into a $60 million brand since its product debuted in 2018, has blazed a trail in unexpected crossovers. As its name implies, the NA beer established early connections with active consumers and sports fans—Ironman and Spartan race sponsorships, to name a few—but now counts Netflix and JetBlue as partners.

The ongoing Netflix deal produced a limited-time brew called Geralt’s Gold, inspired by The Witcher, a hit series with a significant amount of beer drinking. (There’s no product integration because it’s a period piece.) Two more tie-ins are planned for 2024 and 2025, per Katz, with possible placement into the streaming service’s content.

And the collaboration with JetBlue, a groundbreaker in the airline industry that puts Athletic in front of 30 million annual travelers, serves as “validation” for the category, Katz said.

“It shows that NA is no longer in the penalty box,” Katz said, adding: “It’s much more of a mainstream product that people enjoy consuming” rather than a consolation prize.

The brand also works with celebrity chef David Chang and country music stars Julia Cole and Walker Hayes, sponsoring the latter’s current tour with in-venue promo materials, green room and tour bus placement, social media posts and on-site sales in some locations. 

Digging into a sports space where alcohol can’t go, Athletic has NIL deals with more than a dozen college football, basketball and softball players including the Texas Longhorns’ offensive line.

Having popular young athletes as endorsers “helps to normalize and legitimize” the category, Katz said, in line with the marketing team’s goal of making an NA beverage “a cool thing to have in your hand, where nobody asks why you aren’t drinking—instead, it’s a badge of smarter, more mindful drinkers.”