One of the Cheesiest ’90s Rock Bands Is Suddenly Athletes’ New Favorite Good Luck Charm

The Texas Rangers, who are one game away from securing their first World Series championship in franchise history, are one of the more unlikely success stories in recent baseball history. They finished with a decent, but not spectacular, 90–72 record during the regular season while nursing one of the worst bullpens in the Majors and an astonishing eight-game losing streak during the home stretch that almost left them out of the playoffs entirely. Still, they regrouped and managed to dispatch the mildly dangerous Tampa Bay Rays in the wild-card round before sending Baltimore home in a sweep during the Division Series, then finally winning a showdown against their intrastate rivals, the Houston Astros, for the American League pennant.

All of this set the stage for a World Series against the similarly scrappy Arizona Diamondbacks in which the Rangers are currently leading three games to one. How are they staving off elimination? Some would point to the Rangers’ explosive, power-hitting offense or the savvy of veteran ace Max Scherzer, but personally, I think the answer is simple. Like so many other sports success stories recently, the Rangers have found absolution in the power of Creed.

That is the entirety of Globe Life Field, the home of the Rangers in Arlington, Texas, singing along to “Higher” during the third game of the home team’s showdown with the Orioles.* (The Rangers would go on to win that game, 7–1.) You might be wondering why the citizens of north Texas have suddenly been possessed by the spirit of a widely derided Christian-flavored butt-rock band that hasn’t put out a record since 2009 and is frequently cited as singularly authoring the downfall of commercial rock ’n’ roll as an artistic medium. (It is not because Dallas is perpetually stuck in a hallucinatory mid-2000s haze, but that would be a decent guess.) Instead, these lovable Rangers have been listening to Creed in their locker rooms throughout the back half of their turbulent 2023 campaign—as a half-meme ritual—to get them pumped up for pugilistic baseball combat and, perhaps, to find something to laugh about during the dog days of summer. The fans have followed suit, and the Rangers have been leveraging Creed as a good luck charm ever since.

The tradition was “kind of a random thing that everybody started singing to one day,” shortstop Corey Seager, told the Sporting News. (Outfielder Evan Carter, who, the paper notes, was born three years after the release of “Higher”—horrifying!—added that the Rangers have also been performing a whole lot of Creed on the team bus.)

Clearly, the ceremony is working. The Rangers are on the brink of immortality, headed toward a place of golden streets, where blind men see. Creed’s official Twitter account gave its own blessing to the team, posting “Let’s Go Rangers, Let’s Go!” and “#NeedForCreed,” the latter of which I would love to see engraved on my tombstone someday. But the Rangers aren’t the only American sports team looking to tap into some of Creed’s good-luck juju. I give you Kirk Cousins, quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings, fresh off an upset victory over the San Francisco 49ers on Oct. 23. Whom did Cousins credit for the win?

“I gotta say it: Creed. I’m getting my ankles taped pregame, and I’m sitting there on the table, and suddenly Creed comes on. It’s really good morale. Then we go to pray in the corner in the locker room for anyone who wants to pray. We had to turn the Creed off, but Harrison Smith made a good point. He said, ‘Guys, this is the prayer,’ ” Cousins said, like a sermon on the mound. (Cousins, it should be said, has been open about his Creed fandom since at least 2016.)

“They keep playing ‘Higher,’ and I’m going, ‘Creed has a lot of hits. You don’t have to only play “Higher.” ’ But they’re taking us higher, so we’ll take it,” he finished.

Cousins may have given his endorsement a week ago, but on Sunday—in a game against the Green Bay Packers—he shredded his Achilles tendon and will be out for the season. I like to imagine that this happened because the Vikings were rocking out to Alter Bridge, rather than Creed, during warmups. Stray from the light, and the darkness will snatch you.

I don’t have a great answer for why all of these athletes are suddenly orienting toward Creed—who, again, hasn’t been a force in pop culture since the end of the Clinton administration. However, I do think there has been a general reassessment of the various punchlines who dominated the post-Nirvana confusion on the modern rock charts; you can now buy Korn shirts from Urban Outfitters, and I think most people on Earth would admit that Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me” kinda bangs. There is also the undeniable fact that jocks are not exactly known for good taste, which is why “Not Afraid”–era Eminem continues to blare in basketball arenas to this day. But additionally, as someone who spends a lot of time scrolling through Instagram Reels, I’ve noticed a distinct uptick in the number of videos referencing Creed’s euphorically gauche set during the halftime of a 2001 Thanksgiving game between the Cowboys and the Broncos, which, honestly, might be the band’s defining legacy.

It’s pure camp, the perfect encapsulation of dizzy, post–9/11 American solidarity, before all that goodwill was squandered in two useless wars. Scott Stapp leans into his operatic baritone while surrounded by the choreographed cheerleaders. Two impish, shirtless, hairless men flit about the sky, using complex aerial silk maneuvers to suggest the appearance of angels. Stapp is wearing the biggest pair of jeans you’ve ever seen and a custom No. 11 jersey, while images of Ground Zero are superimposed on screen during the crescendo. It is, in other words, inspiring, and I’d like to think that its residue has infected American sports culture forevermore.

Next year, Creed will reunite, for the first time since 2013, for a lengthy tour. The band will be pulling through Dallas—on Sept. 11!—to consecrate the legacy and, hopefully, toast the Texas Rangers on their world championship. The Creedaissance should put all other sports teams on notice. Let them take you higher, before it’s too late.