Athletes smoke cigars primarily as a celebration ritual after big wins, a tradition rooted in decades of sports culture. It’s not about nicotine addiction or a daily habit for most. The cigar has become a visual shorthand for victory, relaxation, and status in professional and college sports alike.
The Victory Cigar Tradition
The most visible reason athletes light up is simple: they just won something important. This tradition traces back to Red Auerbach, the legendary Boston Celtics coach who would light a cigar on the bench when he believed a game was out of reach for the opposing team. What started as a bit of showmanship became one of the most recognized rituals in sports history, and it set the template for decades of post-game celebrations.
Today, the victory cigar is practically standard in championship locker rooms across football, basketball, baseball, and hockey. Joe Burrow’s cigar moments are a perfect example of how the tradition carries forward. He smoked his first cigar after LSU’s national championship win over Clemson, and the image became one of the most iconic photos of that title run. Burrow himself said it was the first cigar he’d ever smoked, and he deliberately turned it into a personal tradition reserved for major milestones. He lit one up again after the Bengals won the AFC North, and another after the AFC Championship. He skipped the cigars for earlier playoff rounds, keeping them exclusive to the biggest moments. “I figured when I win a championship, whether it’s our division championship or a Super Bowl or a national championship, I think we should smoke some cigars now,” Burrow told NBC Sports.
That selectivity is key. For most athletes, cigars aren’t a regular habit. They’re a marker that separates an ordinary win from a defining one.
Relaxation and Stress Relief
Some athletes go beyond the occasional celebration and smoke cigars as a genuine relaxation tool. Michael Jordan is the most famous example. He smoked his first cigar in 1991 after winning his first NBA championship, having never smoked anything before. By 1993, he had developed a pre-game ritual of smoking a cigar on the drive to every home game. “It became such a relaxing thing to do,” Jordan told Cigar Aficionado. “Every time I get to a point where everything is coming at me, I would rather just sit back and smoke a cigar and relax.”
Jordan described the habit as chasing both a feeling of success and a way to decompress from the relentless pressure of being the most famous athlete on Earth. He smoked multiple cigars a day, fitting them around workouts and commutes. For him, the cigar wasn’t about celebration anymore. It was a daily coping mechanism for the stress of elite competition and public life.
Nicotine does have measurable physiological effects that align with what athletes describe. It stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, increasing heart rate, blood pressure, and alertness. Research on nicotine-dependent athletes has found that consuming nicotine before competition can temporarily enhance perceived performance and physical function. Some studies have even noted that athletes who use nicotine show faster post-exercise heart rate recovery compared to non-users, though this likely reflects adaptation to regular nicotine exposure rather than a benefit worth pursuing.
Status and Social Signaling
Cigars carry a different cultural weight than cigarettes. Research published in PLOS One found that premium cigar smoking is associated with affluence, special occasions, and higher social status. While cigarettes are linked to stress and daily habit, cigars are perceived as symbols of sophistication and leisure. People who prefer cigars tend to score higher on personality traits related to openness to experience, reflecting the cultural and social dimensions of cigar use.
For professional athletes, many of whom come from modest backgrounds and achieve sudden wealth, a cigar can be a tangible symbol of having arrived. Lighting one in a locker room surrounded by teammates creates a shared moment that feels luxurious and earned. It’s social in a way that other forms of tobacco use are not. When Burrow smoked after the AFC Championship, his dad and teammate Ja’Marr Chase’s dad joined in. The cigar becomes a communal experience, not a solitary vice.
Health Risks Still Apply
The fact that most athletes smoke cigars only occasionally doesn’t mean the health picture is clean. Cigar smoke contains more tar and higher levels of carbon monoxide than cigarette smoke. For people who don’t inhale (which is typical of cigar smokers), the primary risks shift toward cancers of the mouth, throat, and esophagus rather than lung disease. Notably, mortality rates for oral and esophageal cancers are similar between cigar smokers and cigarette smokers, even though cigar smokers fare much better on lung cancer and heart disease.
The risks for truly occasional smokers, the athlete who lights up a handful of times per year, are harder to quantify. A National Cancer Institute monograph noted that risks for occasional cigar smokers fall somewhere between those of people exposed only to secondhand smoke and those of regular cigar smokers. That’s a wide range, and it depends heavily on how often “occasional” really means. For someone like Burrow, who smokes a few cigars a season, the risk profile is very different from someone like Jordan at his peak, who was smoking multiple cigars daily. Regular cigar use does increase the risk of emphysema and chronic bronchitis, which would be meaningful concerns for any athlete relying on lung capacity.
League Rules and Restrictions
Professional leagues have tightened restrictions on tobacco in recent years, though the rules vary. Major League Baseball prohibits all tobacco products on-field during games in ballparks where local law bans them. Any player who made his MLB debut during the 2017 season or later is banned from using tobacco on-field in every ballpark, regardless of local law. All players must conceal tobacco products when fans are present and cannot use them during televised interviews. Players who debuted before 2017 have slightly looser restrictions but still face significant limitations.
These rules effectively push cigar celebrations behind closed doors, into locker rooms and private spaces. You’ll rarely see an active player smoking on camera during a game anymore. The celebration cigar photos that go viral tend to come from locker rooms, team buses, or postgame parties where cameras are invited but league officials aren’t enforcing on-field rules. The tradition persists, but the visibility has shifted.