Snoop Dogg and Swansea City: DJing on an industrial estate, persuading players to join and his ‘VVVIP’ lounge

It was a lap of honour unlike any other.

Decked out in a Swansea City tracksuit and coat, Snoop Dogg strutted around the perimeter of the pitch before kick-off, twirling a towel above his head Pittsburgh Steelers-style as 20,000 supporters did the same thing, while being serenaded to the tune of ‘You Jack B***ard’ — a term of endearment in these parts.

A rendition of ‘Snoop Dogg’s Barmy Army’ followed, accompanied by the sound of one of the rapper’s greatest hits over the public address system, and it was impossible to suppress a smile at the madness of it all.

Fresh from serving as Team USA’s honorary coach and cheerleader at the Winter Olympics, Snoop was in his element as he embraced the rapturous reception he received from a record home crowd while rubbing shoulders — or something close to shoulders — with a 9ft-tall mascot called Cyril the Swan.

At the risk of stating the obvious, this is not how a Tuesday evening Championship game between Swansea and Preston North End, two mid-table teams in English football’s second tier, is supposed to look or sound — or even smell for that matter (more about that later).

With the players still finishing their warm-up, the Swansea.com Stadium erupted as Snoop emerged from the tunnel to make his first public appearance at the club since becoming a minority owner last summer. Cue 20,000 Swansea fans waving the ‘make some noise’ Snoop Dogg towels that had been placed on all the seats beforehand. It was a rub your eyes moment in this corner of South Wales.

Some people were still pinching themselves about their experience the night before, when Snoop was behind the decks at a private party at the AU Vodka headquarters on an industrial estate in Llansamlet — a Swansea suburb that’s described online as being known for its community spirit and a place where locals “appreciate its dog-friendly parks”.

This particular Dogg was wearing sunglasses, a Swansea beanie hat and hoodie, and let off the lead to do as he pleased. “They told me to get up here and DJ,” Snoop said, holding the mic. “Well, f*** that. I don’t want to DJ. I’m gonna do some Snoop Dogg s***.”

Cue huge cheers as Snoop, breaking into ‘La-da-da-da-dah, It’s the motherf*****’ D-O-double-G’, put on a show for the next hour, running through his repertoire in a canteen that had been converted into a nightclub and in front of a crowd that included Lee Trundle, a former Swansea player otherwise known as ‘The Showboat King’.

The word surreal doesn’t begin to do it justice.

Trundle smiles as he thinks about what happened 24 hours later. “I never ever thought I’d be showing Snoop around on a stadium tour,” he says. “You can talk about stars and stuff like that, but Snoop’s on another level — he’s global.

“But what you’re seeing at the side of the pitch, that’s exactly the way he was behind the scenes as well. He was chatting to people; he was very gracious. We showed him the mural (of Snoop inside the stadium), and he met the lad who spraypainted it, and he was saying how good it was and, ‘Let’s take a photo with him by it.’ So he was a really nice fella to be around as well.”

In some ways, it’s hard to make sense of the Swansea and Snoop Dogg story. But maybe this is just how the Championship rolls these days. Wrexham have their Hollywood owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac, the seven-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady is a minority investor in Birmingham City, and if Snoop had hung around for Swansea’s next game, at Portman Road on Saturday, he could have performed a duet with Ed Sheeran, who has a 1.4 per cent stake in Ipswich Town, the club the singer grew up supporting.

In contrast to Sheeran, Snoop’s relationship with Swansea, who have spent the last eight seasons in the Championship after being relegated from the Premier League in 2018, is still at the getting-to-know-you stage.

“The story of the club and the area really struck a chord with me,” Snoop said in July last year, after Swansea confirmed that the American had become a co-owner. “This is a proud, working-class city and club. An underdog that bites back, just like me.”

By then, Brett Cravatt and Jason Cohen, Swansea’s controlling owners, had already added Luka Modric, a former Ballon d’Or winner who is currently playing for Milan, to their ownership group with the help of a well-connected business associate.

A third A-list celebrity arrived when Martha Stewart, the 84-year-old American billionaire, TV personality and close friend of Snoop, was taken in by, among other things, the sight of Adam Idah scoring a late winner for Swansea against Wrexham in December.

Stewart had been a guest at Swansea on that Friday night just before Christmas, when Snoop watched the game live at an LED dome in Los Angeles. Cue a line that was too good to miss for the Sky Sports commentator Gary Taphouse when the Wrexham goalkeeper’s error gifted Swansea the points in added time.

“Arthur Okonkwo dropped it like it was hot,” Taphouse said.

Snoop Dogg, believe it or not, had reached out to Idah in the summer to deliver a sales pitch of sorts when Swansea were trying to sign the Republic of Ireland international from Celtic.

“Yeah, he did,” Tom Gorringe, Swansea’s chief executive, confirms. “It’s an extremely competitive market when you’re trying to recruit players and I think having that razzmatazz around the place just enables us to provide something a bit different.”

Swansea’s broader strategy with Modric, Snoop and Stewart is to use their global profile and reach — more than 200million followers on social media between them — to increase the Welsh club’s exposure and, in Gorringe’s words, “to attract and monetise new audiences”, all with a view to returning to the Premier League.

“We are at a financial disadvantage with the way the regulations are set,” adds Gorringe, alluding to the EFL’s profit and sustainability rules. “We will never naturally be able to compete with the top-end teams. And so we have to look for new ways to be able to generate more income to enable us to invest in the team, to get to where we want to be. So that is the model, and we’re making really good progress. Snoop is helping us engage with new partners and sponsors all the time.”

Some people will be sceptical, question if this is all some sort of elaborate PR stunt, and wonder if Snoop will ever return to Swansea again — whether that’s to watch a game, DJ on an industrial estate, or take part in another finishing drill at the training ground with the club’s coach and former player Leon Britton (yes, that happened too).

A special day at Fairwood yesterday with @SnoopDogg 👊🐾 pic.twitter.com/Neg367Vi6z

— Swansea City AFC (@SwansOfficial) February 24, 2026

Others are much more inclined to drink from a glass that’s half-full when they think about Snoop’s visit.

“It’s great publicity,” says Steve Carroll, the Swansea Oh Swansea fanzine editor. “Our name will have gone around the world now because of him and Luka. And those scenes pre-match were like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

Trundle nods. “I’m with that as well. It’s crazy for one man to be able to do that — to pull the crowd together, especially with waving the towels around the head. Visually, it was unbelievable.

“But just the way he got involved with the fans, signing things, taking photos; I thought it was brilliant.”

You can’t help but chuckle at some of the stories that are told, in particular around Trundle’s burgeoning relationship with Snoop.

Earlier in the season, Snoop’s son Cordell Broadus watched Swansea play against Watford and was on the phone to his dad in the players’ tunnel afterwards.

“Cordell has FaceTimed Snoop, and then he’s put him on with me and Brett (the co-owner), and Brett and I are talking to him,” Gorringe explains. “And then Brett said, ‘Trunds, come over here?’”

Laughter follows as another member of staff mimics Trundle’s response after he sees who is on the phone.

“You alright, Snoop? How’s it going, lad?” Trundle said in his own inimitable way.

A club legend and hugely popular character, Trundle has a hospitality lounge at Swansea’s stadium named ‘LT10’ in his honour — a place for corporate guests to be wined and dined pre-match.

A tour of the stadium with a Swans legend 🙌 @SnoopDogg pic.twitter.com/tbjtphogqv

— Swansea City AFC (@SwansOfficial) February 24, 2026

Snoop has a Death Row Records lounge that is for his eyes only. Well, that’s not strictly true, actually. “It’s predominantly for him when he comes. But it was used when Martha came, so we opened it for the Wrexham game,” Gorringe says. “It’s effectively when we have VVVIPs. It’s exactly what you would expect it to be: a great space in the stadium.”

Quite what you expect Snoop’s lounge to look like at Swansea’s stadium would be interesting to know. But if you’re picturing a wall with a mirror that doubles as a television, a vinyl record display that features Death Row’s finest artists, and gin and juice and anything else you might want behind a bar, then you’re not far off.

Despite all of that, Stewart actually ended up drinking somewhere else on the night of the Wrexham game. “We took Martha to The Railway Inn, which is the fans’ pub up the road — that is an experience,” Gorringe says, smiling. “When you talk about moments you never expect, that is definitely one.”

Snoop was scheduled to show up at the Railway pub too — a table was cordoned off just inside the door on Tuesday afternoon — but time ran away with him at the stadium, where he enjoyed a brief kickaround on the pitch with Trundle during his tour.

It was tempting to think that the two of them could have done a better job on the pitch than a number of the Swansea players in the first half against Preston, who had threatened to spoil the party after taking a deserved 1-0 lead. “Snoop Dogg, Snoop Dogg, what’s the score?” chanted the 200 Preston fans.

The answer was eventually 1-1, courtesy of a 94th-minute equaliser from the substitute Liam Cullen. By that point, Snoop was back inside, watching from the comfort of his Death Row lounge. “Way to go, buddy,” Snoop said in that familiar Californian drawl after Cullen’s emphatic header brought parity.

As for Preston, the night never seemed to capture their imagination in quite the same way.

Asked about the uniqueness of the occasion, the Preston manager Paul Heckingbottom replied: “I think just the smell of weed in the tunnel was what we realised was different.”