Rhyme and Punishment

The AFL’s booking of Snoop Dogg for the 2025 Grand Final isn’t a gamble; it's a bankable play for play move at the coaching of the NFL. The NFL booked Snoop Dogg for the 2022 Super Bowl Halftime Show, one of the most-watched cultural events in the world. That performance was celebrated as a triumph of hip hop’s mainstream acceptance, not condemned.

It’s not the first time the AFL has looked to the NFL for cues. The rise of 'fan engagement' and the game-day spectacle model all mirror what the NFL has perfected. Snoop’s inclusion isn’t controversial in that it’s part of the AFL’s long-term strategy to mimic America’s biggest sporting stage.

Snoop's Wiki makes for an incredible read. Coming up in the breakout years of Gangsta rap in the early 1990's he's risen to the top of the charts on a persona that has been challenging for many. He backed down from a dangerous lifestyle after a 1993 murder charge saying that his behaviours would end in an assassination or a prison term.

Snoop is often cited as a symbol of a misogynistic gangsta rapper from this time. Ironically, this is because he's still culturally relevant three decades later. He's quite literally the last one on the dance floor. Ice Cube faded out in some awful comedies and Ice T got the SVU treatment.

Snoop Dogg has been many things across four decades: gangsta rapper, gospel artist, family-friendly TV star, cooking-show host, sports commentator. He's reinvented himself cannily and engaged. Crucially, his attitudes have evolved alongside him.

Back in 2012, Snoop declared that “hip hop is ready to accept openly gay rappers”. That was over a decade ago. This is hardly the stance of a man frozen in prejudice.

Since then, Snoop has;

• Released the gospel double album Bible of Love (2018), positioning himself within a genre deeply tied to inclusion and community
• Collaborated with openly queer artists such as Big Freedia (on the Beetle in the House remix and the film Take Me to the River: New Orleans)
• Appeared on TV with RuPaul, one of the most visible LGBTQ+ entertainers in the world
• Publicly credited peers like Pharrell Williams and Dionne Warwick for helping him evolve his lyrics towards respect rather than misogyny

The weight of recent evidence points to an artist who has shifted and broadened, not one who remains stuck in outdated prejudice.

The AFL Grand Final has almost always gone safe yet the public sentiment seems to will the pregame entertainment to tank. Garry Lyon questioned whether Snoop could get an Australian crowd going. We are somehow sceptical of Grand Final performers despite their decades of experience and hit albums. Nostalgia acts like Sting, Jimmy Barnes, Bryan Adams and the very safe Ed Shearan dominate the billing.

Against that backdrop, Snoop Dogg is a bold choice. He’s global, multi-generational, and still culturally relevant. If anything, this is the first time the AFL has booked someone who represents the scale of the event rather than just another misty-eyed, good-old-days, nostalgia act.

They did so in 2023 with the booking of KISS for the Grand Final entertainment (FWIW I loved it too). Aside from the usual questions about if they could manage the posting, their show and visit was controversy free.

But given the treatment Snoop is getting from Football media and public, should it have been?

Simmons was banned for life from Fox News (now THAT is saying something) in 2017 after barging into a meeting, exposing his torso, insulting female staff, and hitting them with his book. He also carries a decades-long reputation for misogyny and crude remarks. There were sexual misconduct claims in 2019 (the case was settled, Simmons denies the claims).

One Herald Sun reporter walked out on an interview with him in the 1990's. Yet when KISS played the AFL Grand Final in 2023, it was framed as a masterstroke of showbiz and there was no question of Simmons past as being problematic to their booking.

Why is it that Simmons’ history is excused while Snoop’s legacy, despite his evolution, is framed as disqualifying? The difference in treatment is glaring, and it speaks less to moral clarity than to cultural bias. Footy is ok with KISS but not too sure about Snoop.

The AFL deserves criticism and should be held accountable. Its booking of Snoop Dogg is not hypocrisy; It is an acknowledgment of his status as a cultural icon who has changed his views and behaviours.

To reduce Snoop’s entire legacy to his lowest moments is to miss the more interesting truth: he is one of the few artists who has shifted with the times, embraced inclusivity, and remained relevant across four decades. That is precisely why the NFL embraced him, and why the AFL has done the same.

You can't drop it like it's hot when you've been cancelled.

Isak Rankine's alleged homophobic slur to a Collingwood player has been defended by his club and media supporters. They claim a double standard; how can Rankine be penalised to potentially miss a Grand Final when the AFL have booked a known homophobe in Snoop Dogg?

The current media discourse oversimplifies the situation. The Age’s framing of “hypocrisy” between Rankine’s ban and Snoop’s booking ignores the distinction between a player actively using a slur in 2025 and an artist whose last widely cited homophobic moment dates back years, followed by a documented shift in attitudes (Michael Gleeson actually says 'Blah blah blah' in a real moment for journalism).

News.com.au’s suggestion that Snoop’s presence “lays bare” hypocrisy fails to grapple with the nuance: attitudes evolve, and public figures can demonstrate change. To erase that possibility is to freeze culture cyogenically and deny the complexity that art, artists and humans inevitably carry.

Current Snoop Kids Content; Respect Everyone by Snoop Dogg

These incidents are not comparable because one is about a players current conduct and the other an entertainers past from which they have clearly grown and evolved.

The court of public opinion demands consistency from the AFL in matters of the tribunal. Head high bumps and perceived accidents are met with varied judgements and fans and commentators are frustrated at subjective decision making.

But the AFL’s punishments are not about theatre or optics; they are about outcomes. For the past 18 months the league has drawn a clear red line on homophobic language, punishing slurs at both AFL and VFL level with consistency. That’s how cultural change happens: not overnight, but through repeated sanctions that shift behaviour. Too often the conversation fixates on the length of a ban, rather than asking whether the punishment creates the conditions for growth.

And this is where Snoop Dogg himself offers perspective. His early career carried the flaws of a different time, but over decades he has shifted. He's cited conversations with Pharrell Williams and Dione Warwick as part of these changes. His career proves that consideration can lead to reinvention, and that change is possible when individuals are given the space to grow.

The AFL is not hypocritical for punishing Rankine and booking Snoop; it is applying the same principle in two different contexts. Punishments are supposed to be about transformation, not erasure. Rankine, like Snoop before him, has the chance to learn, to evolve, and to return stronger.

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