Lionel Messi is making beverage headlines – but not for his own brand.
The Argentine FIFA World Cup winner and Inter Miami FC star has been trying to establish his Mark Anthony Brands-backed line, Mas+ By Messi, as a rival to dominant sports drink brands like Gatorade and BodyArmor. Yet this week Messi helped spark a 4.5% surge (almost $13 billion in market value) in Coca-Cola stock after revealing his unexpected cocktail of choice: Sprite with wine.
In an interview this month with Argentinian streamers LUZU TV, the prodigious playmaker admitted, among other things, that he enjoys drinking wine for leisure; not surprising, considering he has his own official line of wines that start at $100 per bottle.
Yet he also admitted he favors mixing red wine with Sprite – known as “tinto de verano” in Spain – when he’s looking for something that will “hit faster.”
That informal endorsement has since gone viral, sparking the stock rally along with a hat-tip from the company itself.
Sprite’s official Instagram account for Argentina (@spritear) posted an image with a wine emoji and a goat emoji (a nod to Messi’s “G.O.A.T.” nickname) that read “El mejor del mundo se refresca como quiere” (“The best in the world refreshes however he likes.”).
Another fan account on Instagram produced a picture of Messi preparing his favored cocktail, noting that the 38-year-old – who took home more than $130 million in earnings last year – was using “a $30 wine with a $3 Sprite while bagging $100M per year.”
It’s a welcome viral moment for Coca-Cola, but likely less so for Pepsi, Messi’s official sponsor and advertising partner for 20 years.
Ironically, it’s not the first time one of soccer’s defining global stars inadvertently impacted Coca-Cola’s stock price: Messi’s great sporting rival, Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo, famously removed two Coke bottles from the podium during a press conference at the UEFA Euro tournament in 2021, then held up a bottle of water and implored people to choose “agua” instead. The soda giant was a major sponsor for the event.
The unscripted moment caused Coca-Cola stock to plummet 1.6% (around $4 billion) in the following days.