The Wheaties box is a symbol of greatness, a trophy unlike any other that started as a simple orange box. With athletes like Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali on its cover, Wheaties was the original platform for sports heroes that gradually became a rite of passage for the greatest athletes in history.

Today, Wheaties has redefined what it means to be a champion, reserving its iconic cover for athletes who use their platform for more. An athlete who is featured on the Wheaties box is not just a champion in their sport. They are a champion for the next generation.

Following George Floyd’s murder in 2020, Wheaties joined the country’s outcry for justice and partnered with Black athletes to make their voices heard. Throughout that summer and beyond, Wheaties dedicated its every move to supporting athletes who were speaking out and inspired the next generation to keep fighting for change.

When LeBron James received his Wheaties box, he held it up and said, “Mama, I made it.”

Throughout history, Wheaties has been a marker of athletic greatness, a beacon for young athletes to pursue, and an achievement for sports icons to celebrate. When you wanted to know what it looked like to be a champion, you simply needed to look at a Wheaties box.

Now the world has changed and, amidst division and inequity, supporting athletes who treat champion as a verb, not a noun, has become crucial. Today, Wheaties partners with athletes who are not only champions themselves, but those who use their influence to champion others.

“We Champion” is Wheaties’ platform for change. It is the brand’s initiative to provide support and amplification for the causes its athletes care about most, with a focus on making the future of sports and society more equitable for the next generation.

Racial equity matters to the younger generation.

According to a recent poll, 88% of Gen Z respondents believe Black Americans are treated differently than others. In addition, nearly 90% of Gen Z respondents said they supported Black Lives Matter in the fight against both systemic racism and police brutality involving Black Americans.

To reach Gen Z, Wheaties drew inspiration from its historic inclusivity and selected its 2020 and 2021 athletes with the new definition of champions who champion others.

Throughout the year, the brand would partner with the most impactful champions of our time and give them an avenue by which they could inform, impact, and inspire the next generation. With authenticity in mind and true change as the goal, Wheaties put the athlete in the driver’s seat, allowing the box and other levers to be the blank canvas on which champions demonstrate their vision for a better world.

Wheaties’ journey to redefine what it means to be a champion began in 2019 with a Serena Williams partnership centered around her position as an activist athlete.

In June 2020, Wheaties and Serena donated airtime during the BET Awards to The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) and amplified EJI’s imperative message during the highly viewed program and across social media.

That October, LeBron James was on the box, alongside a collage of kids and families from the LeBron James Family Foundation’s I PROMISE program. Wheaties donated to the program and shared LeBron’s mission to solve inequity in his community.

Finally, in celebration of Black History Month and the With Drawn Arms documentary, Wheaties created a box featuring the original activist athlete, Tommie Smith. All sales of this box will be donated to the NAACP and the box will serve as a lesson in bravery for young athletes and athletes alike.