From Lebron James asking the DJ to put on 50 Cent at the McDonald's All American Dunk Content to the yearly anticipated Super Bowl halftime shows, music has been a key motivator for athletes to improve their mental and physical performance prior to a game. Though times are changing, and instead of music being a supplementary component, it is now a collaborator of the sports industry, with both now shifting and paving the culture of the present.
Source: Vibe
There has always been a strong relationship between music and sports, from athletes using it as a way of warming up or enhancing their mental state, to music artists creating or highlighting narratives through sports individuals. The best way to demonstrate the intertwined relationship between the 2 is through bringing up a conversation via technology, the 3rd element that propels the growth of the relationship.
One of the key contributions that technological advancements has made for the sports and music industry is the increase in accessibility to both. Be it a monthly TV subscription or a yearly pass to streaming content, the worldwide access to sports and music content has elevated the status of both industries while allowing the two to collaborate in ways never before. With worldwide access, sporting moments with key music allusions gain cult status, and the attention spreads much further than just the United States of America. In China, Kobe Bryant and Travis Scott are some of the more popular celebrities that people look up to, which a huge deal of that owes thanks to the accessibility created through technology.
Another form of elevation created by technology is the ability to highlight moments in sports. As mentioned earlier, key sporting moments with specific music behind it are able to gain cultural attention through algorithms such as Youtube or celebrity status from the individual within the clip itself. Due to the ability for streaming content to be recorded, highlight clips have become more and more prevalent in all platforms of social media, with Instagram being one of the bigger pushers of these media. As such, the combination of accessibility and the ability to create highlights and short clips has led to a stronger relationship between music and sports.
Technology has shaped the culture that we live in today. Much of street culture is a culmination of music and sport figures that have withstood the test of time or are pioneers in this new day and age. These are individuals such as Michael Jordan and Lebron James, or Tupac and Drake. With the continual advancements of technology and the gradual growth of globalisation, it does beg the question how much more can sports and music merge.