What Happened

In June 2024, Lionel Messi — arguably the most globally recognized athlete alive — co-launched a sports hydration beverage called Más+ by Messi through a partnership with Mark Anthony Brands, the company behind White Claw Hard Seltzer and Mike's Hard Lemonade. The drink debuted in Miami and rapidly expanded to Walmart, Publix, and major Canadian retailers, with a UK rollout through Spar stores following in March 2025. By January 2026, the brand had been quietly phased out.

The shutdown was confirmed by Mark Anthony Group CEO Phil Rosse, who acknowledged that while the company had gone fully behind the project, not all objectives were achieved. The UK website for the brand went dark, products disappeared from Amazon and Tesco, and by May 2026, the brand's exit was widely reported in trade media. The entire lifespan from launch to withdrawal: roughly 21 months.

A Growing Category, an Undifferentiated Entry

The hydration market is not struggling. Sports drinks represent approximately 35.7% of the non-carbonated soft drink segment in the US alone, and the global market is expanding at a CAGR of 5.8% through 2035, driven by rising health awareness, increased fitness participation, and strong demand for functional, clean-label formulations. Search interest for "hydration drinks trends" reached peak index levels in early 2025, reflecting genuine consumer momentum in the category.

Major players have responded accordingly. PepsiCo launched Gatorade Water to extend its hydration franchise. Coca-Cola expanded BodyArmor's Flash I.V. electrolyte line. Keurig Dr Pepper secured distribution rights for Electrolit. Waterdrop built a direct-to-consumer business on electrolyte cubes. The shelf had never been more competitive — but it had also never been more crowded.

Into this environment, Más+ entered with a product formula built around clean hydration and Messi's personal health philosophy. Messi himself described the product as addressing a gap in the market — that most flavored beverages carry excessive sugar, artificial ingredients, and unnecessary additives. The positioning was coherent on paper. The problem was that dozens of other brands had already staked identical claims — and some had been doing so for years with more established credibility.

The Prime Problem: Looking Like the Competition

From the moment Más+ launched, observers noted a striking visual resemblance to Prime Hydration — the influencer-led beverage brand co-created by Logan Paul and KSI that had already built significant consumer recognition. The bottle shapes, color blocking, and shelf presence were close enough that Prime's co-creator publicly called out the similarities on social media at launch.

What followed was a mutual trademark dispute. Mark Anthony International sued Prime in 2024 alleging anticompetitive behavior, claiming Prime had repeatedly threatened litigation over commonplace design elements. Prime countersued, alleging that Más+'s packaging had already confused consumers in retail environments. The legal battle was eventually dropped by both sides in January 2026 — the same month Más+ was quietly phased out.

The lawsuit did not cause the brand's failure. But it crystallized the underlying problem: Más+ had entered a crowded category with a product that felt derivative to informed consumers, rather than distinctly and memorably different. Awareness was never the constraint — Messi's Instagram following alone exceeds 500 million accounts. The constraint was consumer conviction: a clear, credible reason to choose this specific product over the alternatives already on the shelf.

Why Celebrity Isn't Enough Anymore

The Más+ case fits a pattern that has become increasingly visible in the consumer packaged goods industry: celebrity-anchored brands that achieve rapid distribution but struggle to convert reach into repeat purchase. The mechanism is well understood. A celebrity drives initial trial — both through media coverage and through the social proof of association. But trial converts to loyalty only when the product delivers a functionally or emotionally differentiated experience. If it doesn't, the celebrity association becomes an acquisition cost with no retention dividend.

Industry observers have noted that the era of "celebrity as differentiation" is closing. Consumers — particularly in the functional beverage category — are increasingly sophisticated. They read ingredient panels. They compare formulations. They read reviews. The moment a product's sole point of distinction is its famous founder, it is already vulnerable. Andrea Hernández, founder of Snaxshot, made this point directly when Más+ launched: attaching Messi's name to a product does not automatically guarantee its success.

Prime Hydration itself — the brand Más+ was compared to — succeeded not purely on Logan Paul and KSI's celebrity, but because it arrived first in a specific visual and cultural lane, built genuine scarcity at launch, and created product drops that felt like events rather than routine retail restocks. When Más+ arrived in a similar-looking bottle, it had neither the first-mover advantage nor the cultural apparatus to replicate that dynamic. It was a follower product in a category that rewards pioneers and punishes imitation.

The Differentiation Question Every Brand Must Answer

The most instructive takeaway from the Más+ shutdown is not about celebrity strategy, or hydration, or even brand design. It is about the single question that every consumer asks — consciously or not — when standing in a retail aisle or scrolling an e-commerce page: "Why this one?"

In a growing category, the question becomes harder to answer, not easier. More entrants mean more options. More options mean consumers apply tighter filters. The brands that survive and scale are those that have identified a genuinely defensible answer — whether that answer is formulation depth (Liquid I.V.'s Cellular Transport Technology), brand culture (Prime's influencer ecosystem), price-value clarity (Electrolit's electrolyte concentration), or category creation (Waterdrop's microdrink format). Más+ never landed a clear answer. Its celebrity was visible; its reason to exist was not.

Relevance for the GCC Beverage Market

The Gulf Cooperation Council's functional beverage market is expanding rapidly, driven by a young, health-conscious demographic and accelerating investment in Saudi Arabia's food and beverage manufacturing sector under Vision 2030. As regional entrepreneurs and international brands navigate this opportunity, the Más+ case carries specific lessons.

Celebrity partnerships — with athletes, influencers, and cultural figures — are common launch strategies across the GCC's consumer brands landscape. They offer distribution credibility and initial media traction. But GCC consumers are increasingly exposed to global brand standards, and the differentiation question applies here with equal force. A locally famous face on a beverage label is not a product strategy. It is a marketing tactic — useful, but insufficient on its own.

For food and beverage brands operating or expanding in Saudi Arabia and the wider MENA region, the more durable competitive plays are formulation-led differentiation (ingredients with a demonstrable functional story), cultural product fit (flavors, occasions, and nutritional needs that are genuinely regional), and channel depth (relationships with Modern Trade, HoReCa, and emerging quick-commerce platforms). These are the foundations that convert celebrity-driven awareness into sustainable businesses.

Editorial View

Más+ by Messi was not a badly executed brand. It was well-funded, professionally manufactured, backed by one of the most credible operators in the North American beverage industry, and carried by an athlete whose global recognition is unmatched. The fact that it still failed in under two years is not an indictment of its execution. It is a signal about the structural demands of modern brand-building in competitive categories.

The hydration market will continue to grow. The GCC will continue to attract celebrity-anchored beverage launches. The lesson from Messi's Más+ is that none of those tailwinds substitute for the one thing that drives consumer repeat: a product that gives people a reason to come back that has nothing to do with who's on the label.