Trophies and rings are the renowned physical marks of success in American sports, but there’s an accessory that has become just as prevalent in championship-winning locker rooms as the shine of platinum or gold: ‘champagne goggles’.
Champagne has a long-term association with sporting glory. A bottle of Moet & Chandon, from one of the world’s most prominent champagne houses, was passed to Italian motorsports driver Tazio Nuvolari after winning the Vanderbilt Cup in 1936. By 1969, honouring success with a bottle of champagne became part of the formal victory celebrations in Formula One, establishing a relationship between triumph in the sporting arena and sparkling wine.
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It turned out to be a lasting one, with this niche motorsport tradition spreading across the sporting sphere in the United States and Europe. During the Premier League era, it was standard practice for man-of-the-match recipients to be handed a large bottle of champagne as a prize until 2012, when the league switched to a trophy in acknowledgement of the multi-faith diversity of its players. Still, drinking and spraying champagne to mark sporting success has remained, with soccer clubs Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool even bringing non-alcoholic versions into the locker room to ensure everyone could participate in celebrating their respective Europa League and Premier League successes.
Until recently, the ‘champagne goggles’ phenomenon was an entirely American one. However, it’s inspired a trend that has been adopted by some of soccer’s biggest names — and sometimes, champagne isn’t even involved.
It’s unclear where the trend started but baseball hall-of-famer David ‘Big Papi’ Ortiz is probably the first influential figure to bring goggles to the locker room. The designated hitter was a star of the famous 2004 Boston Red Sox team that swept the St Louis Cardinals 4-0 in the World Series to end their 86-year wait for a title.
As is customary in the MLB, they celebrated that triumph with champagne but long before ski goggles became the champion’s eyewear du jour, Ortiz protected his eyes with swimming goggles. According to former team-mate Torii Hunter, Ortiz learned a lesson from their divisional title in 2002 with his previous club, the Minnesota Twins, where they celebrated without eye protection.
As reported on the MLB website, “their eyes burned enough from the champagne that they still hurt the next day”. Corks flying around the locker room at up to 30mph present a real danger, too. In 2022, Eritrean cyclist Biniam Girmay suffered an eye injury when a prosecco cork hit him after he won the 10th stage of the Giro d’Italia. The injury forced him to withdraw from the competition.
Cyclist Biniam Girmay reacts after taking a cork to the eye in 2022 (Luca Bettini/AFP via Getty Images)
As players looked to avoid the sting of the sparkling wine in their eyes or protect themselves from flying corks, ‘champagne goggles’ became common in World Series-winning locker rooms. However, the key crossover moment, perhaps the watershed juncture in its eventual international appeal, wouldn’t happen until 2013.
Despite falling well behind the NFL in viewership and interest in the United States, the NBA is comfortably America’s most influential league internationally. There is arguably no greater driver of fashion and culture in world sport than the NBA and its superstar players.
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As the Miami Heat’s ‘Big Three’ (LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh) celebrated their first title together with a locker-room champagne shower, veteran Ray Allen protected his eyes with a pair of Oakley ski goggles. Allen, who won championships with the Heat and the Boston Celtics in a hall-of-fame career, is often credited as the player who popularised goggles in NBA locker-room celebrations.
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Now, they’re essential for any equipment manager whose team are on the verge of a championship. After lifting the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy in 2022, Steph Curry celebrated while wearing ski googles from Under Armour, the shoe and sportswear company he has been signed to since 2013. Some of his Golden State Warriors team-mates wore Moet-branded goggles, while others donned black-and-gold variations designed by the NBA for the occasion.
Giannis Antetokounmpo and James celebrated their recent championship successes with the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers, with pairs made by Nike. Last year, Jordan Brand athlete Jayson Tatum had a custom-made pair with “champ” written behind a large Jordan logo on the lens as the Boston Celtics toasted becoming NBA champions. Primarily associated with basketball shoes and apparel, ski goggles made by Jordan are not available to the public.
LeBron James celebrates the Los Angeles Lakers’ NBA In-Season Tournament win in December 2023 (NBA Photos/NBAE via Getty Images)
What started as a way to protect athletes from the hazards of champagne celebrations has become a prominent way for brands to advertise in the most significant moments. Now, the trend is spreading to Europe in the form of ‘champagne shades’.
While Ortiz and Allen were the pioneers of baseball and basketball respectively, Barcelona and Spain’s 17-year-old prodigy Lamine Yamal (main image) is leading a generation of players wearing sunglasses in title celebrations.
Celebrating Barcelona’s Copa Del Rey final win over arch-rivals Real Madrid in April, Yamal donned two pairs of sunglasses at once as he carried the trophy on the pitch at the Estadio La Cartuja.
Lamine Yamal dons two pairs of shades to celebrate Barcelona’s Copa del Rey triumph (Guillermo Martinez)
In recent weeks, Serie A MVP Scott McTominay was pictured with the Italian trophy wearing a pair of sunglasses, as were Napoli team-mates Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa and Romelu Lukaku.
Many of the Tottenham group brought ski glasses to Bilbao for the Europa League final and wore them as they celebrated with the trophy in the locker room afterwards. Most recently, Paris Saint-Germain duo Desire Doue and Achraf Hakimi were pictured holding the Champions League trophy wearing sunglasses after hammering Inter 5-0 in the final last weekend.
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Perhaps the most illustrative example of the NBA’s impact on European soccer was Bayern Munich star Michael Olise not only putting on a pair of sunglasses to celebrate their Bundesliga title win but pairing them with a set of ‘grills’, a type of dental jewellery worn over teeth popularised by American hip-hop artists.
Bayern Munich Bundesliga winner Michael Olise, left, and Sunderland’s Eliezer Mayenda, pictured after the Championship play-off final (Getty Images)
NBA and hip-hop is a marriage that has transcended eras and generations, from Allen Iverson’s rap-inspired attire to nine-time All-Star Milwaukee Bucks guard Damian Lillard, who has released several studio albums under Dame D.O.L.L.A.. Yamal, born four years after 50 Cent released Get Rich or Die Tryin’ in 2003, cites the New York rapper as his favourite.
Even before Yamal’s professional debut, Barcelona were one of the first high-profile soccer teams to document players arriving at the stadium in their pre-game outfits, taking influence from American sports.
Lucy Bronze, left, wears visor-style sunglasses during England’s European Championship trophy celebration in 2022 (Leon Neal/Getty Images)
The trend has evolved from Ortiz’s swimming goggles to luxury shades, with players sporting them in moments of celebration — and not necessarily always when the champagne corks are flying, with footballers wearing sunglasses both on the pitch in the immediate aftermath of a trophy win or during post-victory parades.
The custom is a way to show off a slice of their personal style, similar to Iverson’s popularisation of the shooting sleeve or Jimmy Butler’s ninja-style headband. Butler, who now plays with Curry on the Warriors, is a big soccer fan and is friends with Brazilian star duo Neymar and Vinicius Junior. In an interview with the Associated Press, he described soccer players as “the coolest people in the world”.
Led by Yamal, these ‘champagne shades’ are yet another example of how soccer’s new generation is unashamedly taking inspiration from the American sports’ swagger and adding their own style and flavour to it.
(Top photo: Maria Gracia Jimenez/Soccrates/Getty Images)
