Goodyear Blimp turns 101 with first-ever music festival inside airship hangar originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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The first Super Bowl, every Daytona 500 since 1962 and seven decades of Rose Bowls all share something in common — and it isn’t a player, a coach or a network. It’s the Goodyear Blimp, which just floated past a milestone almost nothing in sports ever reaches: 101 years old.
The airship marked the occasion on June 3 the only way it knew how, by throwing itself a bash. Goodyear turned its historic Wingfoot Lake hangar in Akron into the first music festival ever held inside one, dubbed the BANGR at the HANGR.
Headlined by house music DJ Noizu, the event featured flights aboard Wingfoot One, a stage built from Goodyear tires and a roster of attendees equal parts sports and pop culture.
Chomps from the Cleveland Browns, Flash the Golden Eagle from Kent State University and Zippy from the University of Akron were among the mascots in attendance. They were joined by Geoffrey the Giraffe from Toys “R” Us, Cha! Cha! the Tree Frog from Rainforest Cafe, Care Bears characters Grumpy Bear, Funshine Bear and Cheer Bear, an inflatable Flo from Progressive and even the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.
The over-the-top guest list fit the guest of honor. Since live aerial cameras first beamed down from a 1955 college football broadcast, the blimp has covered more than 2,000 games, from pro football’s biggest stage and the World Series to the Indy 500, the Kentucky Derby and the Olympics. In 2019, it became the first non-player or coach ever inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
For generations of athletes, spotting it overhead meant the moment mattered. “College players and fans know that when the Goodyear Blimp shows up, it’s a big game,” National Football Foundation chairman and former NFL quarterback Archie Manning said at the induction. ESPN analyst and former college quarterback Kirk Herbstreit agreed, describing games played beneath it as “special.”
More than a century after its first flight, the Blimp remains a fixture at major sporting events and a symbol that something important is happening below. This time, the big event just happened to be its own birthday.
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