Beast Mode Enters the Humidor: Marshawn Lynch and Kingmakers Launch a Regular-Production Cigar
The former Seahawks star's lifestyle brand makes its full cigar debut at a Las Vegas charity event, with a Nicaraguan blend developed alongside Kingmakers' Claudio Torres and a December retail rollout.
On the evening of October 2, inside Eight Cigar Lounge at Resorts World Las Vegas, the cigar world met its newest heavyweight. Marshawn Lynch, the former Seattle Seahawks running back who turned the phrase Beast Mode into a cultural trademark, debuted his first cigar: Beast Mode by Kingmakers, a regular-production line made in partnership with Kingmakers Cigars. The launch came with a cause attached. The evening was a charity event with Lynch's Fam1st Foundation, and the guests in the room were the first to get the new cigar. Everyone else will have to wait.
Regular production means the line is intended to stay, not to sell out and vanish.
The wait has a date. The cigars are available for pre-order now through the Kingmakers website, with shipping scheduled to begin in December. Retailers receive the line after the pre-orders go out. The debut vitola is a 6 x 52, sold in ten-count boxes for $130, which works out to $13 a cigar. More sizes are planned but have not been disclosed.
The blend
Beast Mode by Kingmakers is Nicaraguan at heart. The wrapper is an Ecuadorian Habano 2000 Rosado. The binder is a Criollo hybrid grown in Nicaragua's Esteli region. The filler is Nicaraguan as well: viso and seco from Jalapa, ligero from Esteli. The cigars are made at MGE Cigars Factory. The blend was developed by Lynch himself, working with Claudio Torres of Kingmakers Cigars and Byron Sheng of the Beast Mode lifestyle brand, and Lynch has said the goal from the start was a cigar he would reach for on his own.
Bringing a cigar to market isn't easy, Lynch said in the announcement. I've kicked back in lounges around the globe talking with folks from all parts of the industry, owners, the cats working in the humidors, factories, and of course other cigar smokers. The goal was to make a blend that I'd reach for myself, he continued, something that meets the mark of the Beast Mode name but also all the hands and people in the fields, rolling, testing, boxing, banding and shipping cuz it's not just my name, everyone who put their time into this is represented. When I light my cigar and hopefully when you get your flame out and slow down to get right, you'll see what I'm talkin' bout.
A familiar playbook
Kingmakers has made a habit of this lane. The company has previously built cigar projects with athletes including Carmelo Anthony and Kelsey Plum, alongside entertainment names like Playboy, KALEO's JJ Julius Son, and the band Midland. The model is consistent: a partner with cultural reach, a blend developed with the company's own team, and a launch with a story attached. Lynch is the highest-profile athlete the company has signed yet.
Lynch played twelve seasons in the NFL, for the Buffalo Bills, the Seattle Seahawks, and the Oakland Raiders. He won a Super Bowl with Seattle in 2014 and was named to five Pro Bowl teams. Since leaving football he has built Beast Mode into a lifestyle brand, and the cigar is its most ambitious product extension so far.
Why this one is different
What separates this from the usual celebrity one-off is the production status. Regular production means the line is intended to stay, not to sell out and vanish. The charity debut gives the first chapter a purpose beyond marketing. And the December shipping date puts the cigars on shelves in time for the holiday season, when premium cigars sell hardest. The blend credentials are serious: an Ecuadorian wrapper over Esteli and Jalapa tobaccos is a proven combination, and the MGE factory has experience with exactly this kind of project. The rest is up to the smoker.
There is also a distribution logic worth noting. Kingmakers is selling the first boxes direct, on pre-order, before any retailer gets stock. That is a demand test and a margin play at once: the company learns exactly how many boxes the market wants before it commits to the wholesale channel, and the earliest adopters pay full price for the privilege of first access. For a celebrity partnership, where the initial spike is usually the whole story, structuring the launch as a pipeline rather than a single drop is the ambitious part.
