If you walk into any professional or minor league sporting event, chances are you’ll hear loud, upbeat music blaring over the speakers. You’ll hear music during timeouts, in between innings, during the halftime performance and as players step up to the plate.

You might even see Russell Westbrook dancing, if you happen to be at an OKC game. Why is that? It’s because music in sport is important.

As an athlete, I can say that there are few things that get me as pumped for a game as the pre-game music. From Drake to Rihanna, the Backstreet Boys to Kendrick Lamar, and Future to Khalid, I feel like the music that’s played before the game has an impact on my performance.

This isn’t just my opinion, though. Scientific studies have shown that pre-game music does wonders for people that are due to undergo any sort of physical activity. A study completed in 2011 states that music, when carefully selected, can have psychological benefits during exercise.

This is a topic that has been studied for over 40 years and is still being looked into today. Music has the ability to capture our attention, trigger certain emotions and lift our spirits right when we need it to — game time.

Many Trinity athletes agree. “Music plays a huge role for me and for our team,” said sophomore Jillian Cready of the women’s basketball team. “It brings energy and focus and really gets us pumped.”

Liam Looney, a junior on the men’s soccer team, couldn’t agree more.

“Personally, pre-game music is just a part of the routine. The music just makes it easy to focus on the task at hand,” Looney said.

The men’s soccer team has a standard playlist for home games that includes songs like “Sit Next To Me” by Foster the People, as well as remixes of other popular songs.

“I love listening to music before practice and matches because it makes me excited and pumped up to play,” said Brooke Bastien, a sophomore on the volleyball team. The team typically listens to rap as they get ready as part of their pre-game ritual.

Music also serves as a superstitious routine for many athletes and teams. Some athletes always listen to a specific song before each game in hopes of it bringing ‘good luck’. The women’s basketball team has a pre-game tradition of listening to “We Have Candy” by Die Antwoord before each game.

“It’s really creepy, but we always listen to that song,” Cready said.

Take a look at this playlist of the best pre-game pump up music as claimed by Trinity athletes. From Kanye West to ABBA, this playlist isn’t something you are going to want to miss.