Sporting and Team Tattoo Designs: Taking Team Spirit Literally in Sports Tattoo Designs

Monday 09th of February 2009 04:41:45 PM [Add To This Article]

Go to any high college sporting event and you will see a wide variety of fans. There will be many who are just there because the tickets were cheap or they happened to be in town. There will also be the token six to twenty guys with front row seats who have painted their chests and are wearing brightly colored clown wigs to show school spirit and get on television. And then, there are the hard core fans. These guys (and girls) know everything there is to know about their team from its history to the many times the referees have ripped them off and the names of everyone on the championship roster. Look a little closer still, and you will notice something else that a lot of these hard core fans have in common: team tattoos.

Team tattoo designs are hugely popular among sports fans everywhere, and as tattooing becomes an increasingly acceptable form of self expression, more and more young people are supporting their team with mascot tattoos, team logo tattoos and even custom team designs that show their dedication and devotion to the sport and the people who play it. This trend is largely a “youthful” trend, meaning that the majority of the people who get this type of tattoo are between 18 and 25. Frequently these team tattoo designs are college mascots, logo tattoos or personal representations of what the sport and the team mean to the person. It is very common to see a heart tattoo design bearing the school logo inside of it, or a mascot tattooed on top of a heart or even the person’s initials.

Interestingly, sports team tattoos are nearly entirely fan based. Of course, this makes a degree of sense since the fans far outnumber the athletes, but many athletes feel pressure to keep their skin clear of team commitments at least until they know where they will ultimately end up playing should they have a pro career. This is slightly more of an issue at a professional level where an athlete can change teams several times in his or her career than at a college level, where you are generally fairly dedicated to a single team for at least four years. While professional and college athletes certainly have their share of tattoos, they are often sport oriented or motivational rather than being a team tattoo design.

Another popular form of the team tattoo design is a portrait tattoo design of a major moment in a beloved team’s history or a turning point in a sport’s history. For example, many Mets fans have renditions of Willie Mays’ 1954 “The Catch,” while baseball fans everywhere sport portraits of greats like Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth. NASCAR fans also frequently invest large sums of money in team tattoos. These tend to also be portrait style of the driver, the car or both. NASCAR tattoo designs often look something like a mural because the include a headshot of the driver and an image of the car, along with the driver’s numbers. Following the death of Dale Earnhardt, Sr. there was an incredible demand for number three tattoos, three with angel wings tattoo designs and images of “The Man” himself in early and later years.

Of course, when discussing team tattoos, you cannot overlook the bonding experience that accompanies the act of getting tattooed as a team. Olympic sports teams nearly always get some version of an Olympic Rings tattoo design placed on their bodies, and many local sports teams mimic the action with a small tattoo that is meaningful to the team members even if no one else gets it. Getting tattooed together can really bring a team together as a unit and gives them a bond that no one can easily break. While the practice is discouraged, many Greek societies require members to get Greek letter tattoos upon introduction to the society, and many college sports teams also prohibit new members from getting sports team related tattoos until the rest of the team has decided that the new member is there to stay. Then, that member may be getting a sports tattoo as part of a bonding ritual more than as a personal expression.

Whether you just want that good old Budweiser car tattoo on your shoulder so you can wave it every Sunday while the cars scream by, or you are getting a team tattoo design to express your devotion to the team or the sport itself, sports tattoos are a great way to identify fellow fans and express your feelings for your team. However, you need to be sure that you love your team, and not just their win-loss record, before you make this commitment. As one tattoo artist points out somewhat ruefully, “One bad season and everyone’s making fun of you.”

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