Darius Rucker Joins Effort to Start an MLB Team in Nashville

Darius Rucker has become the third country singer and fourth entertainer to invest in bringing Major League Baseball to Nashville.

Previously, Kane Brown, Luke Combs and Justin Timberlake were among the star-studded group of investors eager to bring top-tier professional baseball to Nashville, which is already home to a triple-A minor-league team, the Nashville Sounds. Rucker will also join the advisory board, which includes country singers Kix Brooks, Eric Church and Larry Gatlin, per the Tennessean.

The proposed expansion team would be called the Nashville Stars and pay tribute to the former Negro League team that played in Nashville from the 1940s until the early 1950s. If chosen, the Stars would become the first MLB expansion team since the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Rays were added in 1998. Their proposed stadium would sit near the existing Nissan Stadium, home of the NFL's Tennessee Titans, along the Cumberland River in downtown Nashville.

Both Rucker and the president of the Negro League Museum released statements on the news in a press release sent on Tuesday (Dec. 8). The addition of so many singers to the advisory board represents a vision to provide "deep music industry influence" in the plan (per People).

Rucker talks about sports as eagerly as he does music. The South Carolina-raised singer came to country after a career as the frontman for Hootie & the Blowfish. Since turning his attention to country music more than a decade ago, he's notched eight No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hits. In 2020 he released the first single from his next album, "Beers and Sunshine."