Maggie Rogers has always been a sports fan, but this summer she leaned in — and leaned in hard.
It started when the weather was still cold, back in Milan for the winter Olympics. Then it was multiple nights courtside at the Knicks, topped off with a ride in the championship parade (Knicks in 5, baby), and some celebrating in the street. There was a trip to the U.K. to watch tennis at Wimbledon, and plenty of World Cup soccer. If there was a game, a match, or a competition, Rogers was there, reveling in the fine art of fandom. She even jokingly gave it a name: her “big sports summer.”
“It’s such a bleak, terrifying, existential and difficult moment in the world,” Rogers tells Rolling Stone, calling from an artistic retreat in Greece where she’s working on her new record. “To have a common language to connect over has always been the most meaningful thing to me, which is a big part of why I love music. It’s been so interesting and special to get to find that in sports this summer.”
It’s not just Rogers, though. If this feels like the summer where you and everyone you know turned into a rabid sports fan, you’re not alone. The world does feel more disconnected and gloomier than ever: from wars raging abroad, to rising inflation, to the threat of AI on almost everything that makes us human, cheering for sheer athleticism has been a salve that’s perked our spirits and kept us reveling in a crowd.
Rogers graduated in 2022 from the Harvard Divinity School with a Master of Religion and Public Life degree, where she explored the spirituality of public gatherings. While her work primarily focused on live music, she finds a similar sort of collective euphoria and sense of devotion in sports that’s maybe never been more important. And after more than a decade in the public eye as a recording artist and more years in the trenches, it’s allowed her to connect with a sense of expertise and awe well outside of her day-to-day capabilities, especially as she works on new music.
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“When I look at the Knicks on this run into the finals, there was so much urgency and focus and clarity in what they were trying to accomplish,” says Rogers, who sang about a guy who ditched her for a basketball game on “So Sick of Dreaming” from her most recent record, Don’t Forget Me. “In competitive sports that’s maybe a bit more obvious than it is in art. But I don’t want to put music out that I don’t feel essential or urgent about. If I’m going to take any space in the world, I want it to be because it absolutely has to be said. And I’m the person to say it.”
Obviously we’ve always been a country of sports fans, and you’ve been one too. But there was just something different about the role it seemed to take this year in the lives of so many of us: hope, connection, optimism when we needed it most.
I just really love crowds and when people come together to root for something, and to cheer for something. I think it can show us the best of what we’re capable of. I love being a fan because it makes you believe in something bigger than yourself. And that obviously is a form of spirituality or religious devotion in many ways.
The Olympics were interesting because I wasn’t sure how it would feel to be there, because I didn’t know if rooting for the United States would feel nationalistic. Then when I got there and realized I was actually just rooting for these athletes who had devoted their time to accomplishing something great, that felt like a really beautiful pursuit. That’s all I’m ever trying to do. Ten years into my career, I’m thinking about what a lifetime as an artist looks like, and about what a lifetime for any of these athletes looks like. These great narratives of Jalen Brunson‘s dad being one of the coaches and his Knicks run being something that wasn’t successful, but making it to the finals as this sort of intergenerational thing. There’s maybe something a little bit rom-com about it that makes me want to cry. It’s just sentimental.
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You’ve been a New Yorker, and Knicks fan, for a while now. The celebration must have been pretty euphoric.
I’ve been going to Knicks games for a really long time. But like music, the more you learn, and the more you understand the personalities and the interrelationships that are happening, the more fun it gets to watch. Being able to be in New York City as the Knicks were winning was such a dream. New York had this unbelievable glow about it. It just was so special to be in a place where people were suddenly celebrating together. The reason was the Knicks, but people without maybe anything else in common were just being really kind to each other and really open. It’s been a really, really long time since we’ve had anything like that.
As someone who is usually on the opposite power dynamic of the fan/artist equation, what does getting to be on the fan side fulfill in you, in terms of that power flip?
So much of my life in music is just trying to be of service to a community. But it’s really nice to get to be a fan because a lot of times I go to shows and I know too much. I’m looking at the gear that’s onstage and thinking about the stage design and the lighting and how long the costume changes are. There’s something about any of these disciplines that are opposite of mine where I still get to experience a sense of wonder, as well as community. It’s nice to turn off the part of my brain that knows the craft.
Actual trades and abilities aside, are there connective threads between what makes an athlete or an artist great?
I think it’s a sense of devotion. There’s a sense of a spiritual practice or zen-ness of it when you are fully embodied in it, and you’re doing it because it’s what it means to be alive rather than doing it just to accomplish the task. Like seeing Jalen Brunson take a massive pay cut so they could build the greatest team. He wanted to be the best at basketball and he wanted to have the best people to play with. So it stops becoming about money and being about, “How do you become great? And how do you spend the resources that you have to accomplish that?” That to me is an artistic choice. Being in it for the love of the game. When I’m on tour, I always watch baseball movies. I think it’s because the team always wins in the end and there’s this great emotional payoff, but also everybody has to win together. My favorite TV show is Friday Night Lights. I love being on a team.
There was a point in time when it felt like you either had to be a music person or a sports person. Do you feel like that’s something that’s been shifting?
I think that that idea has been shifting for a really long time. You could point to streaming, which is a weird thing to say, but for so long people were defined by the kind of music that they listened to because getting to listen to music was such a hurdle, and you had to purchase each record individually so they meant more about your personality. As people have been able to have greater access to music, for better and for worse, genre no longer defines personality. So you don’t have to be a sports person or a music person. Maybe there’s a little bit more acceptance of how you can just like all the things you like, and they can be in conflict with each other, and still make a complex whole human.
You also just celebrated 10 years of your viral video by launching the Maggie Rogers Foundation, which will focus on making arts and music education accessible while also supporting causes relevant to women’s health and other issues important to you, beginning with a scholarship at your alma mater, NYU.
That’s been such an exciting part of this year. I’ve had really long relationships with nonprofits like Planned Parenthood or Greenpeace or Headcount, and the foundation really is a place to organize those efforts. To me, a sense of wellbeing really comes from body, mind, and spirit. Which is reproductive healthcare and access to healthcare. And it’s being able to create art and have a sense of mentorship around art. It’s being able to live in a healthy environment. So often those causes feel maybe a little broad or disconnected, but to me, they seem so deeply interconnected within human existence and wellness and creativity. What I want to do is find ways that speak to these causes that are really important to me. I’m really happy to have a place to funnel that and organize and raise money.
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Well, now that the World Cup, basketball, and soccer are over, what’s going to carry you into fall?
I hope the thing that takes its place is just getting to see this record come together in its final stages. I’ll be cheering for the WNBA. Women’s soccer, women’s basketball, they’re kind of crushing everybody and getting half the credit. Not that this is about credit, but we’re always shouting out women’s sports.
And the US Open in September. I grew up singing the national anthem at minor league baseball games, but I didn’t grow up in a very sporty household. It almost means more to me because it’s something I’ve found in adulthood. I go to baseball games every year on my birthday because I want to drink beer and eat a hot dog with my friends. I was as mystified by my sports thing as everybody is. It’s weird to me too. I think it’s just been my way of finding a sense of unity and optimism in the world.
