CHICAGO — An NBA Hall of Famer and a popular American Celtic punk rock group are going to be the entertainment around a pro sports championship game coming to Chicago for the first time.

Major League Rugby announced on Thursday that Shaquille O’Neal, who performs as DJ Diesel, and Dropkick Murphys will be part of the festivities around their championship game to be held at SeatGeek Stadium on Saturday, July 8.

The event is hosted by the Chicago Hounds, who are currently in their inaugural season in MLR and call the championship venue home.

Both will perform at what’s being dubbed the “Dawg Town Block Party” that’s taking place before and after the title match. O’Neal will start his performance at 1:30 p.m. and will perform up until the 3 p.m. start time of the championship.

After the conclusion of that contest, Dropkick Murphys will start performing at 5:30 p.m. and play through 7 p.m.

A “Dawg Town Block Party” will take place at SeatGeek Stadium before all of those events from 10:30 a.m. through 1:30 p.m.

O’Neal, a four-time NBA Champion, three-time NBA Finals MVP, and 2000 regular season MVP, has had a few ventures into music during his life. He began DJing when he was a college player at LSU in the late 1980s and early 1990s then started a rap career, releasing five rap albums.

He performed his first set at DJ Diesel in October 2021 in Las Vegas.

Formed in 1996 in Quincy, Massachusetts, the Dropkick Murphys went from their beginnings in the basement of a barbershop to being one of the most popular Celtic punk rock bands in the world. The group, which has featured a number of members over the years, has released ten studio albums, with their 11th, “Okemah Rising,” set to be released on Friday.