10 Moments That Prove The Drake Curse Is Real

Of course nobody actually knows whether Drake is a curse. But after years of high-profile bets, celebrity cosigns and championship predictions seemingly ending in heartbreak, the internet has built an impressive case file. Coincidence? Probably. Hilarious? Absolutely. Here are 10 moments that kept one of sports’ funniest running jokes alive.

Drake publicly backed longtime UFC champion Israel Adesanya before his middleweight title defense against rival Alex Pereira. Adesanya controlled much of the fight before Pereira stormed back with a dramatic fifth-round TKO, shocking the MMA world. The upset instantly became one of the most-cited examples whenever fans debate whether Drake’s support somehow spells disaster.

Barcelona famously wore Drake’s OVO owl logo across the front of its jerseys after the rapper became Spotify’s first artist to surpass 50 billion streams. Rather than celebrating the milestone with a statement win, Barcelona suffered a 3-1 loss to rival Real Madrid. Fans jokingly declared the Drake Curse had expanded beyond betting slips and onto soccer jerseys.

Drake reportedly placed a massive wager backing Conor McGregor before the trilogy with Dustin Poirier. Instead, McGregor suffered a gruesome broken leg at the end of the opening round, ending the bout via doctor’s stoppage and costing Drake another highly publicized bet. It wasn’t long before memes claiming Drake had “struck again” flooded every corner of the internet.

Heading into UFC 278, Drake publicly backed then-welterweight champion Kamaru Usman to successfully defend his title against Leon Edwards. For nearly five rounds, that prediction looked like a safe one. Then Edwards landed one of the most iconic head kicks in UFC history, knocking Usman unconscious with less than a minute remaining to capture the championship. The dramatic upset became another exhibit in the internet’s ever-growing “Drake Curse” case file.

Canada’s Cinderella run captured the attention of the soccer world, and Drake proudly backed his home country before its semifinal showdown against Argentina. Unfortunately for Canadian fans, Lionel Messi and the defending world champions proved to be too much, eliminating Canada with a convincing victory. Social media wasted no time adding another international soccer loss to Drake’s résumé of unfortunate predictions.

When Drake publicly showed love to Jannik Sinner heading into another major showdown with Carlos Alcaraz, tennis fans immediately joked that it was bad news for the Italian star. Alcaraz ultimately came out on top, and “The Drake Curse” quickly found its way into tennis conversations once again. At this point, it doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s soccer, basketball, UFC or tennis — fans are ready to connect every upset back to Drake.

One of the biggest fights in recent boxing history also became one of the biggest “Drake Curse” talking points. Before Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk squared off to crown the sport’s first undisputed heavyweight champion of the four-belt era, Drake publicly revealed he had placed a massive Stake wager backing Fury. Usyk ultimately won via split decision, handing Fury the first loss of his professional career and sending social media into another frenzy. As soon as the final scorecards were announced, fans flooded X with memes claiming Drake had done it again.

Before million-dollar Stake bets became part of Drake’s public persona, many fans point to Kentucky’s shocking Final Four loss as one of the first true chapters in the “Drake Curse” saga. Drake had become one of the Wildcats’ most visible celebrity supporters, regularly spending time with the program, publicly backing head coach John Calipari and even placing a friendly $6,000 wager on Kentucky ahead of its showdown with Wisconsin. The Wildcats entered the game a perfect 38-0 and were widely expected to continue their march toward an undefeated national championship season. Instead, Frank Kaminsky, Sam Dekker and the Badgers stunned Kentucky 71-64, ending one of the greatest seasons in college basketball history — and giving internet detectives another piece of “evidence” that Drake’s support might come with a little bad luck.