Snoop Dogg’s hilarious and rare Olympic pin, explained

While you might think medals are the ultimate prize at the Paris 2024 Olympics, a new kind of collectable has been overrunning the athletes village, thanks in no small part to Snoop Dogg.

The rapper, who this year took on a special correspondent role for NBC’s Olympics coverage, has reportedly kickstarted a pin-trading frenzy among athletes from across the globe. For context, athletes competing in the Olympics have, since 1896, been known to trade and collect exclusive pins — brought from their home countries — during the three-week run of the sporting event.

It has been a custom that encourages athletes from all over the world to interact and have fun while competing, but it was given renewed attention this year when Snoop Dogg entered the fold. 

What is Snoop Dogg’s Olympics pin?

Snoop Dogg’s Olympics pin is becoming a hot commodity within the Olympic athletes village. While most pins traded among athletes are made by the main sporting organizations of a given home country, the origins of the rapper’s specialty pin remain a little murkier. It’s not yet known whether the pin — which features the notorious weed-smoking rapper exhaling rings modelled after the Olympics logo — was created by Snoop Dogg himself, or as part of his role as an NBC special correspondent. 

In any case, reports coming from the Olympic village suggest that Snoop Dogg’s pin has been met with the most fanfare among athletes, who have been feverishly trying to get their hands on the rapper’s in-demand trading pin. One athlete lucky enough to get the Snoop Dogg pin was Team USA flag bearer, Coco Gauff. In a video shared on Instagram by Team USA, the rapper can be seen wearing a shirt with the tennis player’s face on it, before gifting her his namesake pin. 

“Hey Mr. Snoop, thank you for this pin!” Gauff said in response. “This is the best pin that I’ve ever gotten.” Elsewhere, two athletes from New Zealand’s women’s rugby team uploaded a TikTok in which they made it their “challenge” to track down a Snoop pin, adding to a collection that included traded pins from Germany, Australia and Brazil. 

Just how many Snoop Dogg pins are available to be traded among the Olympians remains unknown, since they aren’t publicly available for sale at the moment. Even Snoop himself has remained tight-lipped on the number and supply system of his pins, saying in an interview that he has “zero answer for” where the pins are located and how they are dispersed among the athletes.  

The rapper isn’t the only high-profile name to enter this year’s Olympics pin-trading market, with bonafide superstar Simon Biles arriving to this year’s event with a tradable pin of her own. Biles’ custom pin is shaped in a gold heart, and is reportedly considered alongside Snoop’s as the most coveted pin at this year’s Olympic Games.