How Former NBA Star Al Harrington Is Building A $100 Million Team Of Black Cannabis Entrepreneurs

In the late 1980s, when Al Harrington was nine years old, getting searched for drugs by police in Orange, New Jersey was routine. Most school day afternoons, after Harrington and his friends played kickball, they would hang outside the bodega on the corner of Tremont Avenue and Scotland Road. “All the time, the police would pull up, three or four cars, and they’d jump out, hands on their guns: ‘Everybody against the wall,’” the 42-year-old Harrington remembers. “It was scary—not knowing if they’re going to lock you up.”

Three decades later, on a sunny California afternoon in April, the former NBA star who stands 6-foot-9 and is wearing a fresh pair of Nike Air Jordan 1s , size 16, is a long way from the urban landscape where he was raised. While sitting in a private hangar at the Santa Monica Airport, where Harrison Ford used to store his planes, Harrington talks about his journey from playing 16 seasons in the NBA to becoming one of the few Black CEOs in the legit cannabis industry.

In 2012, as Harrington’s basketball career was coming to an end—he was a power forward for the Indiana Pacers, New York Knicks, Denver Nuggets who earned nearly $100 million over the course of his career—he co-founded Viola, a Los Angeles-based cannabis company named after his grandmother. Viola grows, processes, and sells all types of pot products, from flower to concentrates to pre-rolled joints. Harrington now has operations in California, Colorado, Michigan, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Washington, and generated about $20 million in revenue last year. In 2021, NBA Hall of Famer Allen Iverson joined the company and Viola launched the “Iverson Collection” line of marijuana products. Just as making it to the NBA is the longest of long shots, Harrington is a rarity in the cannabis world. In an industry that generated $25 billion in legal sales last year, only 2% of companies are Black-owned.

“That is an issue,” says Harrington, who pulled up to the airport in a white Rolls-Royce Cullinan wearing a Rolex President watch and a gold chain with a bust of his grandmother around his neck. “How can [the policing of] this drug have done so much harm in our communities,” he asks, “and now is a multibillion-dollar industry and not only are we not in position to participate, but we’re still locked up because of it?”

In January, Viola raised $13 million from investors to expand to Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The company also plans to open two dispensaries and a cultivation site in St. Louis later this year. He already inked a licensing deal to bring the brand to Canada last year. In total, Viola has raised $34 million and is valued over $100 million. Harrington invested $6 million himself and owns about 40% of the company. Other investors include some of “his guys” from the NBA, including Ben Gordon, J.R. Smith, Kenyon Martin, Josh Childress, and DeMarcus Cousins.

But selling weed is only part of Viola’s mission. Harrington’s main goal is to help Black and Brown entrepreneurs in the cannabis industry build equity in one of America’s fastest-growing economies. Today, cannabis is legal in some form in 37 states. By 2030 the industry is expected to generate $65 billion in annual sales, up 160% in a little less than a decade. “The opportunities in our communities need to be owned by us—period,” Harrington says.

Through Viola, Harrington is trying to right some of the wrongs caused by America’s drug war, one entrepreneur at a time. Like a one-man Y Combinator for cannabis, he is pursuing a plan to create 100 Black cannabis millionaires. A million dollars might sound like small potatoes, but in the context of this industry, particularly for small business owners, it’s a lot of money. Harrington has already helped mint a handful.

Viola launched its incubator program two years ago. The company has since invested around $700,000 into four companies, including Mezz, a vape and pre-roll company in Colorado and Los Angeles-based Butter Baby, which makes THC-infused butter to use in baking things like brownies. Harrington takes between a 10% to 25% stake in exchange for help with marketing and fundraising. He doesn’t invest in ideas, rather he buys into companies that are already up and running.

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