Inside The Coolest Sports & Music Crossovers
Sports culture in the US is undergoing a bit of a revival.
The primary four leagues, including the NHL, MLB, NFL, and NBA, represent the bulk of sports interest in North America. However, budding soccer, rugby, and peripheral football leagues (like the USFL and XFL) are shaking things up by offering new sports experiences.
The proliferation of sports betting has also helped boost interest around the US. Back in 1992, the US banned sports betting at the federal level—but the Supreme Court lifted that ban in 2018. Since then, dozens of US states have opened their doors to in-person and online betting.
Deals that were once reserved for boutique sportsbooks in Vegas are now available from OddsChecker and similar sites that collect the industry’s finest free bet offers. Moneylines, prop bets, and totals have slowly become a more standard part of sports culture in the US. But not everyone who decides to place their first bet wants to focus on sports stats. In fact, there are thousands of Americans who are interested in sports from a cultural perspective. After all, leading athletes in the main four leagues mentioned above become superstars in their own rights. In some cases, the league itself may even be a mainstay of culture, from fashion to music to VR.
The NBA Catwalk
The NBA isn’t just about basketball. The league, and the sport itself, has directly influenced fashion in the US. Starting in the 1970s, the focus was on shoes—including converse. Fast forward to the 1990s and Nike, in collaboration with Michael Jordan, put out Air Jordans, which revolutionized street footwear around the world.
Today, the NBA rakes in millions from its retail merchandising around the world. From Hong Kong to Rio de Janeiro, NBA jerseys, fitted caps, and basketball shoes are staples of streetwear. The league’s influence on fashion is so great that top stars today are paid hundreds of thousands to highlight new looks as they walk from the tunnel onto the court. It’s become something of a ‘concrete runway’.
Pro Sports & Rap
The NBA may have a foothold in the world of fashion, but all pro sports have influenced music. From the country genre to pop anthems, sports references are par for the course. But no genre has taken pro sports under its wing quite like rap.
Drake and Kanye West, in particular, often lean on sports to craft their rhymes. Drake sticks to the NBA, referencing players from LeBron to Devin Booker. Others, like Big Sean, have referenced the NFL’s Colin Kaepernick. The idea is to link greatness to star athletes… usually with a few comparisons to themselves thrown in.
A Case Study: The MLB’s Walk-Up Song
While the MLB’s slow pace makes it harder to reference in a rap song, the league isn’t shy about music. In fact, it’s got one of the coolest traditions in US sports culture: the walk-up song. For those who don’t like sitting through a multi-hour baseball game, the walk-up song is played when a batter walks up to the plate. The batter gets to choose the song, which is designed to pump up the crowd.
And the MLB is really lenient about which songs batters can choose. In 2022 alone, some of the greatest walk-up songs included ‘El Mechón’ by Banda MS de Sergio Lizarraga, the Spongebob Squarepants theme song, ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ by Coolio, and ‘X Gon Give It To Ya’ by DMX.
The Super Bowl Effect
One of the biggest events in US entertainment is the NFL’s Super Bowl championship game. Even those who can’t be bothered with fourth downs and interceptions likely tune in to see which brand-name commercials will be a hit and whether the half-time performance will go without a hitch.
Just look at the upcoming Super Bowl performance scheduled for February 2022. While football fans wait to see which teams will play, thousands more are focused on the return of Rihanna. After swearing not to participate in the Super Bowl, the NFL managed to sign on Rihanna. She’ll be performing at the half-time show, which is her first return to the stage since she last performed in 2019.
