Music Meets WNBA: Bon Iver & Minnesota Lynx Form Historic Alliance

Bon Iver and the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx announced a first-of-its-kind partnership focused on gender equity and community impact. Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and Lynx All-Star Napheesa Collier discussed the collaboration with ESPN’s Malika Andrews.

“I just have been so inspired by your team, the organization – went to so many games last year and have been a fan for a long time,” Vernon told Collier. “I just wanted to figure out a way to support the team and the organization. But also, [I’m] so inspired by the community action that you all take and the impact that you have in the community. A lot of the stuff we’ve done in Bon Iver over the years has been helping women’s shelters, partnering with organizations like that, and I just thought, what a better way to support the team than amplify all these things we’re doing.”

The multi-year partnership between Bon Iver and the Lynx began with the start of the 2025 WNBA season, which recently got underway. Vernon, a native of Wisconsin with strong ties to Minnesota, is the first individual Lynx Changemaker, a platform established to foster investment by the Minnesota business community in women’s sports.

“I think the Lynx, way before I got here, has always represented standing up for what is right, social justice, closing the barrier with inequity, especially [on] the women’s side, and standing up for women and empowering them,” Collier said. “So partnering with someone like Justin – and he has such a huge platform – and merging music and basketball, there’s so many similarities in that, where, of course, we work in different fields, but we have the same goal.”

Bon Iver and the Lynx will work together with organizations focusing on gender inequities stemming from domestic and sexual violence, sex trafficking, health care gaps and educational and leadership barriers.

“We are incredibly excited about this innovative and first-of-its-kind partnership, centered around community impact and the cultural connection of sports and music,” said Lynx President of Business Operations Carley Knox. “Justin is an incredibly passionate supporter of the Lynx, and our complete value alignment has allowed us to create a partnership focused on meaningful societal change.”

Bon Iver’s 2 A Billion campaign – whose mission is to raise “support, awareness and person-to-person connections in an effort to end gender inequity, domestic violence and sexual abuse” – will donate $250,000 in total grants to nonprofit organizations including Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, She Rock, She Rock and Girls Taking Action. Additionally, 10 Minnesotan and western Wisconsin nonprofit organizations and shelters will be supported by the partnership.

“Basketball is exactly like music, it’s a group and individual improvising to create moments of vision, excitement and joy,” Vernon stated. “Simply said, the Minnesota Lynx team is my favorite band in the world right now. As Bon Iver, we also saw an unprecedented opportunity to not only support this band of incredible women on the court, but by combining forces to more urgently support the communities of women in the Upper Midwest.”

Watch Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and the Minnesota Lynx’s Napheesa Collier discuss the alliance on ESPN’s NBA Today below: