Rocking the Arena: Celebrating Musicians and Bands Who Are Sports Fans

Crossovers between celebrities and sports teams are one of the best phenomenons in all of athletics. It can feel like the everyday life of celebrities is a million miles away from Joe the rest of us live, but the little things like sports fandom are an excellent reminder that no matter how we’re separated by wealth, race or creed, we can still come together behind a common cause.

Whether it’s Matthew McConnaughey’s rabid fandom of the Texas Longhorns or Taylor Swift’s romance-inspired Kansas City Chiefs crossover (which won’t quite make this list, unfortunately, given that she began life as a fan of the Philadelphia Eagles) it’s always fun to know that you and your favorite celebrity share a favorite sports team. Here are some of the biggest sports fans in the music industry today.

J Cole: North Carolina Tar Heels

If you know anything about J Cole, you know that he takes his North Carolina roots seriously. Born Jermaine Lamarr Cole in Frankfurt, Germany—his dad was serving in the US military at the time—the rapper moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina at the age of 8.

While he went to Saint John’s University, a traditional basketball powerhouse in the Big East conference, Cole always represented his home state’s UNC Tar Heels. He’s taken the time to visit Tar Heels practices on multiple occasions, wearing his favorite jerseys and shooting hoops with the team he loves. Cole is also perhaps the most likely of any celebrity on this list to pop celebratory champagne at the end of the season, as the Tar Heels are one of the favorites to win the NCAA Tournament at betting sites in North Carolina… especially after they crushed No. 16 seed Wagner 90-62 in the Round of 64.

Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band: Motor City Roots

Next on the list is an old school rockstar, frontman and titular vocalist Bob Seger of the Silver Bullet Band. Seger was born in Detroit and grew up in nearby Ann Arbor, where one of his best friends in high school was Glenn Frey—the future co-lead singer and guitarist for the Eagles.

Seger has always proudly represented the Motor City, still living in the region today despite his wealth and fame. As you might expect, part of that Detroit identity is its sports teams. He helped write the final chapter for a pair of Detroit icons, playing one of the last concerts in the history of both the Pistons’ Palace at Auburn Hills and the Red Wings’ beloved Joe Louis Arena.

He sang America the Beautiful at Comerica Park ahead of the Tigers’ 2006 World Series appearance against the St. Louis Cardinals and, although he’s happily retired now, he also spent some time in the limelight during the NFL postseason earlier this year, with the Detroit Tigers making it to the NFC Championship Game for the first time in more than three decades. Seger appeared on the sideline alongside Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer during the Lions’ divisional round win, and former Lions’ head coach Jim Schwartz even awarded him a game ball once.

Lil Wayne – Green Bay Packers

The first two musicians on this list have always been vocal—pun intended—fans of teams from where they grew up, so I’ll go a little outside the box for this last entry.

While Lil Wayne grew up in New Orleans, home of the Saints, his professional football allegiance lies several hundred miles north on the shores of Lake Michigan. Lil Wayne is a huge fan of the Green Bay Packers, and it’s not too much of a surprise when you consider some basic NFL history.

His hometown Saints were one of the worst teams in the league for the first 30 years of their existence, and the continuous heartbreak and apathy didn’t make for an enticing watch. Instead, he picked the Packers, who defeated the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXI… because the game was played in his hometown Superdome.

Seger and Cole have both been pretty modest in their musical allusions to sports teams, staying away entirely or keeping the references brief. Wayne, on the other hand, holds himself to no such standard, remixing Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow” (which is itself a reference to Khalifa’s hometown Pittsburgh Steelers) as “Green and Yellow,” paying homage to the Packers colors ahead of their Super Bowl clash with the Steelers.

While it’s Khalifa’s song that gets more radio play today, Wayne’s version ended up coming out on top, as the Packers defeated the Steelers 31-25 in the big game that year.