Kolohe Andino in “Smooch.” Photo: Two Percent // YouTube
One of the constants throughout the arc of Kolohe Andino’s professional surfing career has been a big Red Bull logo slapped on his board. Andino and the energy drink were synonymous during his 11-season Championship Tour (CT) career. But that era has come to an end.
Andino recently took to Instagram to announce that the Red Bull partnership, which spanned more than half of his life, has come to an end.
“Cheers to 17-plus years with Red Bull,” Andino wrote in the post. “At a loss for words and cannot articulate how grateful I am for this partnership. They do it right. Thank you to everyone who was involved and made this happen, it changed lives. Incredibly blessed, honored and humbled for the support and love over the years. Thank you again and again a million times over.”
Andino’s name has been removed from the Red Bull surfing roster and a separate source confirmed the split.
Andino’s exit from Red Bull comes after his first full year off the CT, a period that also saw his sponsorship with O’Neill expire. However, Andino didn’t stay idle during his time away from competition. Like other surf stars who have ventured into launching brands of their own – Kelly Slater, John John Florence, and Julian Wilson among them – Andino took a similar leap to launch his brand ‘2% Union,’ a company inspired by his tight-knit San Clemente surf crew.
But less than a year after 2% Union’s launch, Andino appears to have scratched those plans and created a new surf brand called “Steko.” Rumblings of the new mystery brand first surfaced on social media in early December, and then Andino further fueled the buzz with his latest Instagram post of the various iterations of the brand logo.
Andino hasn’t publicly said much about the new brand, but the website is currently promoting sweatshirts for $100 and t-shirts for $50. The Steko Instagram bio promises a new merchandise drop on January 14 as all items are currently sold out.
It’s unclear why Andino had to start from scratch with a new brand. Two Percent’s Instagram was deleted and all content was removed from the website. Andino didn’t immediately respond to a request for clarification. Regardless, it appears he’s got something brewing in the background as he transitions his post-CT surfing career. Unless he has a CT comeback in mind? We shall see.
