Mike Repole, the beverage entrepreneur best known for selling Vitaminwater to Coca-Cola for $4 billion and BodyArmor to Coca-Cola for $5.6 billion, has his next billion-dollar brand.
Repole bought a majority stake in struggling apparel brand NoBull in July 2023, and six months later, merged it with Tom Brady’s TB12 and Brady Brand, adding Brady as a co-owner in NoBull. Now NoBull has raised $50 million in funding at a $1 billion valuation, Front Office Sports has learned. It’s the first funding round since Repole bought the company.
The company is also launching NoBull Nutrition, which will start with protein and electrolytes; as part of that launch, TB12 will wind down operations.
Along with the funding and nutrition line launch, NoBull has added influencer and former LSU gymnast Livvy Dunne and Islanders player Matthew Schaefer as new endorsers and partners.
When Repole bought NoBull, it was a company in trouble. The company laid off 35% of its staff in May 2023 and lost its longtime CMO. “Sometimes when brands start to grow, they have growing pains. I came in and saw an opportunity where I can buy the brand, buy the company, and take it from CrossFit to mainstream,” Repole told FOS in an in-studio interview in New York last week.
“I watched Nike and Adidas and Puma and brands like that grow up, and then I also saw these new brands come in like New Balance and Hoka and On Cloud … I wanted to create a brand you can play golf in, lift weights in, walk, run, and nutrition was part of it.”
Repole said he met Brady at the Kentucky Derby in 2018, then they reconnected in 2020 in Florida when Brady was playing for the Buccaneers.
“When I acquired NoBull, I told Tom I think there’s an opportunity here for nutrition,” he said. “As I start to figure out walking, running, weightlifting, training, golf, I want NoBull to be an overall wellness brand. So we merged the two companies together. And Tom’s been my partner now for almost three years, and it’s a great relationship.”
Repole most recently took a major stake in the United Football League and will be closely involved in its marketing, and has become widely known for his NIL donations to his alma mater St. John’s.
