How Class Trip married Widespread Panic, tie-dye and Georgia football
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University of Georgia alum John Bell will step on the field at Sanford Stadium to sing the national anthem in front of approximately 90,000 fans before the highly anticipated Week 12 game when the No. 5 Georgia Bulldogs host the No. 10 Texas Longhorns in Athens.
Many of those fans will wear hats, hoodies, t-shirts and even retro bomber jackets designed with that exact performance in mind. That is because Bell is not just any former Georgia student. He is the frontman of Georgia Music Hall of Fame band Widespread Panic.
The Southern rock jam-band has deep roots to both this essential college town, the state at large and music history: Their free concert to promote Light Fuse, Get Away in 1998 that drew more than 100,000 fans is still considered the largest gathering ever in Athens as well as the world's largest record release party.
After watching fans celebrate in Athens after the Bulldogs defeated the Alabama Crimson Tide to win the national championship in 2022, Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart said that the “first thing” he thought about was that concert.
Some of the gear that Georgia fans will wear against Texas will come from an apparel collection celebrating Widespread Panic by Class Trip. The lifestyle brand was founded in 2024 by Brian Francis, who is also a Georgia alum. It’s part of his goal to reimagine the college apparel worn on Saturdays around the nation, combining music and college fandom.
“We want to be able to redefine how people think about merchandise,” Francis told For The Win. “Our mission is to outfit those moments, to design products that look great, feel timeless, and carry a real meaning.”
This collaboration in particular nods to Widespread Panic’s early days playing campus parties and Athens venues like the Mad Hatter Ballroom and Uptown Lounge. It will also come with a pop-up experience at the Georgia Theater, a remastered documentary about the band and a new vinyl release.
However, while it doesn’t get any bigger than Widespread Panic for Georgia fans, so many other college towns have their own version of that.
“It’s like a marriage of two people’s favorite things,” Francis said. “But it has to make sense for that place.”
Class Trip wants to match vintage-inspired apparel to each school with the right band and fortunately, Athens is not the only place where this all already clicked into place. Just a year into its existence, Class Trip has secured licensing rights with more than 50 universities as well as partnerships with roughly a dozen major artists.
One of those collaborative efforts: The University of Oregon and the Grateful Dead. Their viral campaign was an easy match because of Eugene’s rich history with the band (like shows with Bob Dylan) and the program’s historically bold uniform choices.
Autzen Stadium in Eugene was filled with 58,940 fans and countless were adorned in tie-dye designed by Class Trip when the Oregon Ducks hosted the Wisconsin Badgers for a Week 9 victory.
“The town was alive with the spirit of the Dead and there wasn’t even a concert,” Francis said. “That was community. That was really special.”
Oregon’s football team was wearing jerseys inspired by the Dead and designed with help from Class Trip. The entire city was ready to meet the moment. The local Nike store was covered in the band’s “Steal Your Face” logo. Other psychedelic visuals, including their dancing bears, made their way onto the rainy football field for the game.
“The iconography of the Grateful Dead and the University of Oregon is already so beautiful, and you have so much to work with,” Francis said. “We were just able to put the pieces together.”
This sold-out collection also included a unique Air Max 90 (the sneaker Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia wore while singing the national anthem at a San Francisco Giants game) with an Oregon-specific twist.
“We pride ourselves on being storytellers,” Francis said. “If we can't do something authentically and there's not a narrative that makes sense, we're less interested in doing it.”
The success that Class Trip saw with Oregon was a proof of concept about the intersection of sports, apparel and music. Next, there is plenty to look forward to from Class Trip.
There is another Bulldogs apparel drop to keep an eye out in 2026 with a “beloved” group from the state of Georgia — though, unlike Oregon head coach Dan Lanning, don’t expect Smart to ever allow anyone to touch their red and black jerseys.
They have a future collaboration with Willie Nelson and the University of Texas that should resonate well with fans in Austin. Other extraordinarily popular bands are expected to have rollouts coming elsewhere, too.
When he thinks about this collection and Bell singing the national anthem, though, Francis finds it surreal to mix the bands and teams he grew up loving into one creative universe.
“It’s the soundtrack of our lives,” Francis said. “And we’re just trying to have fun with it.”
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Georgia – Texas game gets Widespread Panic collab from Class Trip
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