On August 11, the Paris Olympics, a quadrennial sporting event, came to a conclusion. Not only the breathtaking and exciting athletic performances, we were also able to witness the beautiful arts and culture of the host country, France, among others. The opening ceremony was perhaps the most obvious example, where we were able to hear beautiful classical piano and orchestra performances, but there were a lot more collaborations between arts and sports.

At a glance, there seems to be quite a big gap between sports and arts, but that might not necessarily be true. They are both performed by us humans and can universally be understood without language. In recent years collaborations between sports and teams and art have become more common. Here in this article, we will look at some of the examples of collaborations between sports and art that have been particularly successful.

JC Rivera - Real Madrid
Adidas and Real Madrid collaborated with a Puerto Rican-born contemporary artist JC Rivera to collaborate with them on a customized kit for the 24-25 season. The team wore the limited editioned away jersey featuring numbers designed by Rivera for their pre-season match against Chelsea in Charlotte.

This collaboration was made possible as a part of Adidas’ Artist Pack, an initiative in an attempt to raise the profile of social and sporting projects involving vulnerable groups.

JC Rivera, who currently resides in Chicago claims himself to be a fan of Real Madrid, but moreover, his son is an enthusiastic fan as he reveals. “I want them to be excited about everything that I do,” says the artist in his interview. The limited jerseys will be auctioned off as part of Real Madrid Foundation’s social projects in the Americas.

FELIPAO - LALIA
La Liga might be one of the most successful leagues when it comes to collaboration with the arts. In addition to the work with JC Rivera introduced above, they also collaborated with a Moroccan-born sculptor、Felipe Garcia-Bañon Sanz-Briz at the beginning of the 2022-23 season.

Felipe Garcia-Bañon, commonly known as Felipao, whose work has been shown all over the world created "Poppin", for the Welcome Pack celebrating the new 2022-23 season. Poppin is a sculpture of a French bulldog especially popular among football players and other celebrities.

The Welcome pack was sent to 1,100 players, in an attempt to bring together art and football, while representing the values of the La Liga brand and showing the link between the two through emotion. The sculpture was a limited edition version of the work, which in this case features a necklace with the LaLiga logo and the author's exclusive signature "Felipao by LaLiga".

Masa Sasajima, a betting expert but also a big art fan, says, "La Liga is one of the most popular European leagues in my country, Japan. In addition to watching games, betting on La Liga, and collecting merch, collaboration with art could be a new style of enjoying La Liga.”

NIKE ON COlOR RUSH
On the other side of the Atlantic, an American sports brand Nike partnered with a group of New York artists to celebrate the debut of the NFL’s new ‘color rush’ uniforms for all 32 teams.

The collaboration is a part of Nike’s “color rush” campaign that started in 2015, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first-ever color-broadcast of the League's regular season game in 1965.

For this, NIKE has collaborated with 11 creatives who each created a piece of artwork inspired by a particular team’s historic color combinations. Five took inspiration from Giants, five from Jets with works ranging from paper installations to pieces of clothes.

Artists showing at the exhibition include Ars Thanea, FAUST, Meguru Yamaguchi, Pawel Nolbert, Naturel, Christophe Roberts, Raven B Varona, Patrick Vale, Jack Aguirre, Lemon Andersen and Saiman Chow.

LVMH EXHIBITIONS ON PARIS OLYMPICS AND PARALYMPICS
Finally, as aforementioned above, we were able to experience a number of French artists and brands in collaboration with the Pari 2024 Olympics. LVMH, a luxury goods conglomerate whose flagship brand, Louis Vuitton, is a premium partner of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

In addition to the breathtaking scenes during the opening ceremony, from the rooftops of Paris to the LOUIS VUITTON workshop showing the brand’s long history, they organized a series of artistic events to enhance the games’ cultural impact.

But this is not all. Many more LVMH brands host exhibitions and showcase beautiful collaborations between art and sports. To name a few, Berluti collaborated with an artist, Mathieu Forget to present an exhibition “L’Élégance française en mouvement,” showcasing photographs that capture Olympic sports in motion and Dior presented a photo exhibition at their Avenue Montaigne store, featuring the Maison’s sports ambassadors.