katero
All Breaking News Politics
Jul 01, 2026

How Norway’s Viking Row has captured the American imagination

How Norway’s Viking Row has captured the American imagination

Martin Odegaard bangs a drum as his Norway team-mates, seated, perform the 'Viking row'.In the background are three tiers of seating in the AT&T Stadium in Dallas.

The Viking row has become a popular ritual for players and fans alike Lars Baron/Getty Images

By Patrick IversenJune 30, 2026 10:28 pm EDT Updated

ARLINGTON, Texas — The drum descended the stands like a sanctified relic, passed hand over hand through sections of fans who wouldn’t let it touch the ground.

By the time its journey began from the fans gathered in the third deck to the pitch at Dallas Stadium, Norway had already done the hard part: a 2-1 win over Ivory Coast, sealed by Erling Haaland’s 86th-minute winner — the country’s first knockout-round win in its World Cup history.

Captain Martin Ødegaard took the drum from the stands, placed it on the grass with his teammates sat behind him, and raised the stick high.

What happened next has become familiar to anyone who has followed Norway’s run through this tournament. The crowd above (red and blue, with Viking helmets scattered throughout) needed no instruction. They sat down in their seats, in the aisles. They reached forward, pulled back, and shouted “RO!” in time with the drum, the chant building speed as the beat quickened, arms moving in unison through a stadium full of many people who, a month ago, had no real reason to know what any of this meant.

The ritual is called the Viking Row, and it works the same way every time, whether it’s happening on a pitch in Arlington or a subway platform in Queens. Fans sit down in a line, one behind the other, lean back and pull their arms toward their chests in unison, as if hauling an oar through water, while a leader keeps time on a drum and the group chants “ro” — Norwegian for “row” — faster as the beat speeds up.

Fans doing the viking row during the sixth inning of a game between the New York Mets and the Chicago Cubs (Ishika Samant/Getty Images)

It has done what its creators hoped, giving a country without a World Cup appearance in nearly three decades something simple to rally around. But it has also done something they didn’t fully anticipate: it has become one of the defining images of the North American World Cup, performed by people with no connection to Norway at all.

The gesture went viral in the U.S. after a video of Norwegian fans rowing up a Boston escalator gained millions of views. Since then, it’s been done on the floor of a New York City subway car, in the middle of Times Square, and by a section of fans at a Mets game who probably needed a distraction from their team.

Norway fans are doing a “Viking Row” up the escalator at Boston’s South Station before heading to the World Cup

Adding this to the list of things I’ve never seen before and probably never will again pic.twitter.com/j8NvltOvfk

— Jeremy Siegel (@jersiegel) June 16, 2026

The trend now attracts participants regardless of soccer ties; in Arlington on Tuesday, free agent NFL quarterback Jameis Winston taught Dallas Mavericks star Cooper Flagg how to row. As Norway’s plane landed at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport on Sunday, officers from the Dallas police department and the airport police were seated on the tarmac, doing their own version of the row just outside the aircraft.

“My buddy showed me a video of it like two weeks ago, and I was like, ‘That’s kind of awesome’, and now I’m doing it here with people I met today,” said Brett Couch, 37, of Fort Worth, outside the stadium post-game. Behind him, a family of four Norwegian fans sat on the grass doing the row as a foreign correspondent urged them on with a camera.

“Whoever invented the rowing has patented it, I hope,” head coach Stale Solbakken said on Monday.

The chant is older than it looks, dating back more than a year to Norway’s qualifying win over Italy. But the Viking framing was deliberate: a musician and a member of the team’s fan club, who dreamed up the chant together, built it around the image of Vikings “returning” to a continent they’d reached long before Columbus. It was a hook that turned out to travel much farther than anyone in Norway expected.

After Norway’s 3-2 win over Senegal in East Rutherford, New Jersey, which clinched their knockout-stage spot, Ødegaard banged the drum, and the team rowed with their fans on the field. With the team’s full adoption of the ritual, a post-game tradition appears to have taken hold. And the players, the sight of it spreading beyond their own fans hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Erling Haaland, front right, and the rest of the Norway team have embraced the row (Lars Baron/Getty Images)

“They mean so much to us. It’s amazing to see so many Norwegians coming over, and everyone’s getting involved in the rows as well. So it’s brilliant,” midfielder Kristian Thorstvedt said. Asked how much the team looks forward to doing it themselves, as they did Tuesday, he didn’t hesitate. “It’s something we look forward to, and of course, this has to be a thing now. We have to keep doing it.”

Defender Torbjørn Heggem said the setting in the Dallas Cowboys’ home stadium gave it an extra charge. “It’s actually really fun. The first time was great, and now with this stadium and the acoustics and everything, it was unbelievable.”

“It’s like the wave, but better, because you get to yell,” said Valerie Brackett, 27, of Dallas.

That’s more or less the point fans and organizers keep making about why it has traveled so well. It doesn’t require knowing the words to a song or the history behind a banner. It requires sitting down, moving your arms and bellowing when someone tells you to.

A high-angle view of the Norway fan Viking row 🤯 pic.twitter.com/CJIda5U7ed

— Interesting things (@awkwardgoogle) June 24, 2026

It’s traveling in the other direction, too. “Back home, my mom is doing this in the kitchen, my whole family group chat is just rowing videos now, it’s out of control,” said Erik Stensrud, 31, from Norway, who flew over for the knockout rounds.

He is not exaggerating. Back in Norway, the row has spread well past stadiums and living rooms. A kindergarten class outside Oslo lined up shoulder to shoulder and rowed together in a video that Haaland himself shared. At a nursing home in the country’s north, residents set their alarms for the middle of the night to catch a match, then pulled on Viking hats and rowed before kickoff. Members of Norway’s Parliament have done it too, with the prime minister joining in.

Members of the Norwegian parliament doing the row (Håkon Mosvold Larsen / NTB / AFP via Getty Images) / Norway OUT

Share

X Facebook Reddit LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email

Other posts

Former high school friends charged in scheme to smuggle guns into California

Jul 01, 2026

Former high school friends charged in scheme to smuggle guns into California

Move Over, Blue Jeans! Mariska Hargitay’s Boutiquey Summer Alternative Is Here to Stay

Jul 01, 2026

Move Over, Blue Jeans! Mariska Hargitay’s Boutiquey Summer Alternative Is Here to Stay

Kawhi Leonard's strange, failed era with Clippers ends with Raptors trade as NBA investigation still looms

Jul 01, 2026

Kawhi Leonard's strange, failed era with Clippers ends with Raptors trade as NBA investiga...

DOJ says 11 migrants indicted in multi-state sex trafficking, drug, firearms case

Jul 01, 2026

DOJ says 11 migrants indicted in multi-state sex trafficking, drug, firearms case

Jalen Brunson, NBA Champion

Jul 01, 2026

Jalen Brunson, NBA Champion

NY boy, 16, kills himself after fatally shooting ‘inseparable’ best friend in terrible accident: ‘So guilt-ridden’

Jul 01, 2026

NY boy, 16, kills himself after fatally shooting ‘inseparable’ best friend in terrible acc...

Caminero and Vilade go back-to-back in Rays win

Jul 01, 2026

Caminero and Vilade go back-to-back in Rays win

Zach Werenski trade update is good for Maple Leafs, Lightning, but bad for Stars

Jul 01, 2026

Zach Werenski trade update is good for Maple Leafs, Lightning, but bad for Stars