The Rangers Sang Creed, Then Sports Kept the Chorus

Texas Rangers players sang Creed’s “Higher” after winning the franchise’s first World Series on November 1, 2023. Champagne hit the visitors’ clubhouse at Chase Field in Phoenix, and the 1999 chorus went with it.

The clip traveled like a joke. The song did not stay one. It moved from a baseball locker room into football stadiums, a hockey crowd that kept singing after the speakers died, and a reunion run that filled amphitheaters the internet had written off.

The Rangers Needed a Song and Found Creed

The habit started as a mood fix, not a brand campaign. Texas sat 38-33 at the All-Star break, then rode the usual second-half grind. Pitcher Andrew Heaney told Rangers radio voice Jared Sandler that the clubhouse started playing Creed to loosen the room during that stretch.

Heaney wanted the noise in the stands too. If Globe Life Field played a Creed song and the crowd belted it, he said, it would fire the team up. By then the band was already the club’s private joke that had stopped being a joke. Heaney later called the track a battling cry from midseason on.

Texas finished 90-72 and tied Houston in the American League West. The club swept Tampa Bay in the Wild Card round. Heaney started Game 1 of the ALDS against Baltimore, then, with the World Series on the line, gave the Rangers five innings and one run in an 11-7 Game 4 win that pushed the series to 3-1.

Manager Bruce Bochy, back from retirement for that season, told the soaked room after the title, “What you guys did to do this is truly incredible.” The series ended 4-1 over the Arizona Diamondbacks. Corey Seager, the World Series MVP, did not dress it up. “It’s kind of just a random thing that everybody started singing to one day, and it’s kind of built on itself,” he said.

FROM CLUBHOUSE TRACK TO TITLE

1. Midseason 2023: Rangers players start spinning Creed before games during a choppy second half.
2. October 10, 2023: Globe Life Field puts “Higher” on the speakers and the Jumbotron; the crowd sings, and Texas beats Baltimore 7-1 to sweep the ALDS.
3. October 18, 2023: Scott Stapp, Mark Tremonti and Brian Marshall attend ALCS Game 3 against Houston, their first public appearance after the reunion news.
4. November 1, 2023: Players sing “Higher” in the champagne clubhouse after the first title in franchise history.

Dallas even piped the song into American Airlines Center after the final out, while the Mavericks put the baseball feed on the arena board. The chorus had already left the clubhouse.

Globe Life Field Sang the Chorus Out Loud

Heaney got the stadium he asked for on October 10. Lyrics ran on the video board. The crowd took the high notes that radio had worn smooth in 1999 and 2000. Texas won 7-1 that night and kept the song in the building through the Astros series and into the World Series, including player introductions.

Rangers players built handshakes around different Creed songs, a private language on top of the public one. The band noticed. Creed posted support for Texas during the ALDS. Stapp, a longtime Cowboys fan, was not starting from zero in North Texas. The group had already been the Thanksgiving halftime act at a Cowboys game in 2001, a broadcast still passed around every November, aerialists and all.

“Higher” was built for that kind of room. It was the lead single from Human Clay, the 1999 album Luminate credits with 11.7 million copies sold and RIAA diamond status. The track peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 on July 22, 2000, and spent 17 weeks at No. 1 on rock radio. “With Arms Wide Open,” from the same record, spent a week at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in November 2000. Stapp has said the songs were tagged early as workout music with big riffs that still carried a melody.

Kirk Cousins Took Higher to the NFL

The Rangers made the ritual famous. They did not invent the athlete habit. During Philadelphia’s run to the Super Bowl in early 2023, the Eagles were already playing “Higher” at practices, months before Texas turned it into a Jumbotron event.

That fall, Minnesota quarterback Kirk Cousins, an open Creed fan, brought the same song into the Vikings locker room. The team won five straight. After a win over Chicago, Cousins pointed at the baseball clubhouse across sports. “The Rangers have been playing Creed and they’re rolling in the playoffs,” he said. “It may have made the difference. Who knows.”

Before a home game against San Francisco, safety Harrison Smith stopped a teammate who reached to turn the volume down ahead of a team prayer. “He said, ‘Guys, this is the prayer,’” Cousins recounted. At U.S. Bank Stadium the PA cut before the chorus on purpose during a win over New Orleans, and a large share of 66,933 people finished the lines. Center Garrett Bradbury called the sound awesome. Receiver Justin Jefferson, then 24, admitted the only Creed he knew was the boxing movie until Cousins rolled the speakers in.

Cousins tore his Achilles against Green Bay. The playlist survived the injury. Backup Josh Dobbs posted a celebratory clip set to “Higher” after a comeback over Atlanta. The streak died in a loss to Denver, which is how most locker-room songs end. The chorus did not go with it.

WHERE HIGHER SHOWED UP

Stapp was not surprised to see jocks in the credits. “Our songs had been labeled as inspirational, anthemic and good workout music with big riffs that didn’t sacrifice melody,” he said. “From the beginning,” he added, Creed “always seemed to connect with athletes and sports teams.”

A Surprise Appearance at the ALCS

Creed’s first public appearance after the reunion news was not a stage. Stapp, Tremonti and Marshall sat in Globe Life Field on October 18, 2023, for Game 3 of the ALCS against Houston. They taped a shout-out, appeared on the video board during “Higher,” and took questions. Texas lost that night and still closed the series. The band sent congratulations after the title.

Stapp treated the city as unfinished business from the Cowboys years. “Of course how could you not embrace a city that’s embraced us for many years. The Cowboys, back in the early 2000s, and now the Rangers,” he said. “We’re fans of anyone who supports us.”

The sports week did something the cruise announcement had not. Drummer Scott Phillips said the four members were on a text thread through the World Series, watching, cheering, lamenting. “It was a nice bond to have again, where it was just the four of us communicating with each other, reconnecting as friends, not only as bandmates, but as people,” he said.

You couldn’t ask for a better marketing strategy than having a World Series baseball team using your music to get them a championship. It couldn’t have been more serendipitous.

Mark Tremonti, Creed guitarist

The reunion itself was already in motion. Creed had announced the Summer of ’99 cruise in July 2023, months before the Rangers went viral, as the first shows together since 2012. That sailing sold out in less than two days, and a second week was added. A 40-city North American tour followed on October 30, while Texas was still in the World Series. Stapp called the overlap “too perfect to have ever been planned.”

The Reunion Tour Sold 800,000 Tickets

Sports did not restart Creed. It handed a planned comeback a public ritual and a younger door. Agent Ken Fermaglich at UTA said reunion talks went back to 2021 and that 2024 was the window the four men could clear. Live Nation’s Steve Herman, looking at early sales in March 2024, said 10 percent of tickets were going to buyers under 24 and 38 percent to buyers under 34, younger than most rock acts from that era.

By December 2024, a Live Nation release put the first reunion run at 60 sold-out shows and 800,000 tickets. The 2024 trek opened July 17 in Green Bay. A 23-city 2025 sequel opened July 9 in Lexington, Kentucky, and ran through August 20 in Calgary, with 3 Doors Down, Daughtry, Big Wreck and Mammoth WVH rotating as support. Stapp’s statement on that encore was blunt: “It’s been an incredible ride, and we aren’t done, so here’s to a ‘Summer’ that never ends.”

Compare that with the last full run. Billboard Boxscore had the 2012 tour at 20 reported shows, 49,000 tickets and $2.3 million. The 2002 peak was 86 shows, 932,000 tickets and $39.5 million. My Own Prison and Weathered are each at 6.5 million copies sold, per Luminate. 2009’s Full Circle sold 455,000. The catalog in between those decades never went quiet on playlists; it went quiet in arenas.

THE NUMBERS AFTER THE MEME

• 569 million: “Higher” now has 569 million streams on Spotify, up from a March 2024 mark that had already passed 243 million, more than double in two and a half years.
• 16.9 million: Creed’s monthly listeners on the same service sit at 16.9 million.
• 263 million: On-demand song streams of the catalog from December 29, 2023, through June 27, 2024, with 31,000 U.S. radio plays in the first half of 2024.
• 11.7 million: Human Clay sales, the diamond album that sent “Higher” into stadiums the first time.

“Higher” is still not even the band’s most-played track. “One Last Breath” sits at 884 million Spotify streams. The sports world picked the song that sounds like a crowd, not the one the algorithm ranks first. In February 2024 the band issued a Stadium Anthems playlist built on “Higher,” “With Arms Wide Open” and “Are You Ready?” The same month a Paramount+ Super Bowl spot folded Creed into a 1990s pile-up with Patrick Stewart and Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.

Stapp, talking through the ticket demand in 2024, did not sound like a man enjoying a gag. “To see that happening for Creed, with a whole new generation of fans and listeners? It’s just… very rewarding,” he said. “You’re just grateful because it really could have gone in another direction.”

Hockey Crowds Inherited the Baseball Chorus

If the Rangers title night was the clip, the later scenes are the argument. They keep arriving in rooms that do not need a World Series to justify the song.

THE CHORUS AFTER THE TROPHY

• Mariachi night: In June 2024 a mariachi band played “Higher” at Globe Life Field, the same building that had taught the city the words, and the clip spread because it sounded like a local custom, not a bit.
• Stars, speakers off: On April 19, 2025, during Game 1 of Dallas’s first-round series against Colorado, “Higher” was rolling at 14:53 of the second period when the puck dropped and the PA died. The American Airlines Center crowd sang the chorus anyway. Colorado still won 5-1.
• Heaney, still telling it: Heaney retired in December 2025 after 12 seasons, including a two-year Rangers stay that went 15-20 with a 4.22 ERA in 307.1 innings. In August 2026 he was back on a team podcast walking through how 2023 adopted the song, laughing at the old clubhouse question, “Oh my God. Is Creed our song?”
• The ask that will not die: Rangers fans spent September 2026 telling the club to put “Higher” back on. A college-football crowd, in the same window, wondered why a stadium had not already stolen the baseball trick between quarters.

That is the tell the 2023 joke never covered. A meme needs the recording. A stadium anthem survives the mute button. Dallas hockey fans finishing Scott Stapp’s lines without the band, the ballpark, or a title on the line is the same muscle the Rangers used, moved to a different sport.

Herman’s younger ticket slice fits the same picture. Jefferson had to be introduced to the catalog in a locker room. Tremonti said reunion sales skewed highest among 25-to-35-year-olds and that his own kids finally thought he was cool because athletes were involved. “They finally think I’m cool because as far as music goes, they wouldn’t know who half the people that I tour with are,” he said. “But with the athletes, they absolutely love it.”

A 1999 Chorus Still Works in Packed Stadiums

Strip the online sneer and the remaining object is simple. “Higher” is loud, slow to explode, and built on a chorus a drunk stranger already knows. Stapp wrote it around lucid dreaming. Jocks heard a tunnel song. Critics heard Pearl Jam cosplay and never got past the impression. The people who buy tickets and fill sections did not wait for permission.

Tremonti has lived both reputations, Creed on one side and the more praised, smaller-selling Alter Bridge on the other. “What would I rather do? Sell tons of records and not get the critical praise or get the critical praise and not sell the records?” he asked. “They both have their perks.” The sports years answered that question in public, without a think piece attached.

Stapp now talks about the mockery as free advertising he used to hate. “All the jokes and memes just continually kept us in the conversation, which actually ended up making us new fans all these years later,” he said. “It’s funny how it all turned out.” The Cowboys halftime tape, the Rangers champagne, the Vikings prayer, the Stars crowd, and the mariachi chart the same path: the song stayed in circulation long enough for a new room to need it.

Creed’s 2026 tour dates are still being posted under the old catalog. Final 2026 shows billed as Creedmas are set for December 11 and 12 at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas. A 25th-anniversary reissue of Weathered is due November 20, the album’s first vinyl pressing. The Summer of ’99 and Beyond cruise for 2027 is already listed as sold out. The chorus that soaked a World Series clubhouse is still the one those rooms will hear.

Frequently Asked Questions

When Did Creed Release Higher?

Creed released “Higher” in 1999 as the lead single from Human Clay. It peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 on July 22, 2000, and spent 17 weeks at No. 1 on rock radio, part of a run of seven straight rock-radio chart-toppers that also included “What If” and “With Arms Wide Open.”

Did Creed Play a Concert at the Rangers’ Playoff Games?

No. Band members attended ALCS Game 3 on October 18, 2023, appeared on the Globe Life Field video board during “Higher,” taped a shout-out, and spoke to reporters. They did not play a set. Their first reunion shows were the Summer of ’99 cruises in April 2024, more than five months later.

Is Higher Creed’s Most-Streamed Song?

No. On the band’s Spotify page, “One Last Breath” leads at 884 million streams, then “Higher” at 569 million, then “My Sacrifice” at 500 million. Stadiums grabbed the song that is shaped like a singalong, not the track the catalog ranks first.

What Is Creed’s Stadium Anthems Playlist?

In February 2024 the band posted an official Stadium Anthems playlist built for game days, led by “Higher,” “With Arms Wide Open” and “Are You Ready?” It went up the same month as a Paramount+ Super Bowl commercial that dropped Creed into a 1990s mash-up with Patrick Stewart and Tua Tagovailoa.

What Happened to Andrew Heaney After the Title?

Heaney pitched two seasons in Texas on a two-year deal, going 15-20 with a 4.22 ERA in 307.1 innings, then retired in December 2025 after 12 major-league seasons. He was still recounting the Creed clubhouse origin on a Rangers podcast in August 2026, a year and a half after he left the roster.

The internet got a punchline out of a soaked baseball team. The crowds kept the song. That is why “Higher” is still in the building when the speakers cut out.