Macho Man Mood Music: Ranking the Best Sports Television Theme Songs of All Time
Sex and sports: They are the dual passions of American manhood, and, more than likely, its two leading causes of cardiac arrest. Yes it is a simple, cavemanish observation, but it contains too much truth to ignore. The two intermingle in every corner of modern masculinity, from the SI Swisuit Issue to lingerie football to this web site's slightly voyeuristic gaggle of WAG devotees (Waggles as I call them). And just as sex has its aural aphrodisiacs - its Marvin Gayes and Righteous Brothers - sport too has its own set of mood music, the television broadcast theme song. “Let’s Get It On” and “Roundball Rock” are chords of the same key, high-speed landlines to the “YES!” part of the male brain.
Those first chords reverberate with optimism, tapping into a collective cradle of anticipation, reminding us that the score is still 0-0 and all things are possible. A great theme song is the sports fan’s audio scrapbook, recalling past glories and setting the stage for coming heroics.
This list celebrates the best theme music that sports television has to offer. These are the songs that let us know we’ve arrived at a great moment, the ones that evoke memories of sweat and desire and physical sacrifice while subtly reminding us that we’re comfortably miles away eating cheesy bread.
Honorable Mention: Hockey Night in Canada (Original)
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To be honest I know very little about this anthem from the Great North. I’m not Canadian and many of hockey’s traditions still confuse me. Despite my ignorance I figured hockey deserves at least a mention on this list, and Hockey Night in Canada is the epicenter of the puckhead world. People with funny accents assure me that the original rendition of the HNC theme song bests the current score, so enjoy this classic from Gretzky’s Dominion.
15. I’ve Been Waiting All Day for Sunday Night (NBC)
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A relative newcomer, Faith Hill’s ode to patience has the sort of cornball sensibility that defines football broadcasts. The song is a full-blow, country-rock melodrama cast carefully in the mold of its big brother at Monday Night Football. For NBC, whose sports coverage tends to err on the side of understated, “I’ve Been Waiting All Day” lets us know that the network is at least trying to belong. I particularly enjoy the bridge before the chorus that crescendos with Hill’s reverberating hammer on the word “say-ay-ay-ay-ay.” And you’ve got to respect those kicks. The leather goes so far up the leg that “thigh-high” sells those babies short. Crotch-high boots, fireworks, football, America. It just makes sense.
14. SEC Football on CBS
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Let me start by being frank: I hate SEC football. I hate the obnoxious elitism, the sleezeball coaches, the frat boys in their pinstriped blazers who manage to make shaggy hair look clean-cut. If I liked SEC football this song might rank higher on the list, but even as an SEC hater I’ve got to give the song and the conference its due. The song is simple and memorable and it features a heavy dose of suspense-mounting brass. It helps that Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson are the best broadcast team in college football, and you can’t ever separate song from commentator. I have to admit that, by virtue of showing the best SEC game on the docket, CBS features the only relevant college football game on weekly basis. An SEC team will win the national championship, so who cares that Texas plays Missouri later that night on ESPN? The SEC is the closest thing the FBS has to a playoff, and CBS sets the stage beautifully.
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13. ESPN Sunday Night Baseball
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For a sport so rich in broadcasting talent and tradition, baseball offers remarkably little in the way of theme music. Since most people watch a majority of the games on local cable networks, it’s hard to privilege one market’s theme song over another. ESPN’s hardball anthem, however, earns a place on this list. It’s not much for length, but the memorable opening melody serves as a nice lead-in for Sunday Night Baseball and its companion Baseball Tonight. Because the song chimes in for every single score update, you can’t help but remember the tune and, eventually, embrace it.
12. NFL Films Theme Song
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As a song the NFL Films score might be the very best. And if it introduced a real-time event the track would easily land in the top five. As is, this prelude to the battles of yesteryear drips with gridiron purity, telling a story of hardship and triumph even before Harry Kalas’ narrative baritone enters the frame. Unlike so many other theme songs, NFL films didn’t go for a wall of sound. They isolated the instruments and built on the momentum of each piece in order to give the song its suspenseful overtone. The solo cello at the beginning resembles the beginning of Fantasia’s “Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” only this time Butkus, Brown, and Unitas are the ones coming back to life. By the time the rest of the symphony enters, the legends are dancing again before your eyes.
11. NFL on CBS
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CBS’ football overture is a great example of a theme song that truly complements the tone of the network’s coverage. The song has a serious feel, a no-nonsense appeal emanating from its low notes. It is the musical manifestation of the Jim Nantz-Phil Simms broadcasting team. Nantz and Simms don’t have flashy catch phrases or bombastic deliveries, relying instead on apt descriptions and insightful analysis. They are good without being glitzy, just like the song that precedes them.
10. Sunday Night Football Theme/Football Night in America (NBC)
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Another entry from the upstart NBC telecast, this tune marries the austerity of the NFL on CBS with NFL Films’ old school sentiment. This is to say that the song feels current and classic all at once, even on a broadcast as new as Football Night in America. It also serves a vital role for the Sunday Night Football experience, balancing out the kitschiness of Faith Hill with a musical restraint fit for broadcast veterans like Patrick, Michaels, and Costas. In 10 years this song might move closer to the top, but for right now it sits comfortably in the second tier.
9. College Basketball on CBS/One Shining Moment
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CBS’s coverage of March Madness, highlighted by the incomparable Gus Johnson and severely underrated Bill Rafferty, always manages to draw me into a sport I typically only observe from the margins. I’m still not sure if this song is good or just addictive, but its hard to ignore a tune that you could hear well over one hundred times in a four-day stretch. The first two weekends of March Madness are all-encompassing affairs, that this song is its all-encompassing anthem. And, cheesy as it is, I have to mention the cumulative tradition of “One Shining Moment.” The lyrics and music are classically overblown, but that’s really the spirit of college basketball. The fans, the players, the coaches, every one is always way too excited, but that’s what makes the sport so damn endearing.
Listen (2x):
8. NBA on TNT
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I like the NBA on ESPN, I really do. I like Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy, really a surprisingly entertaining and capable duo. But I LOVE the NBA on TNT. If you want to know how ex-players and analysts really feel about basketball then tune into TNT. Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Ernie Johnson are honest, concise, and engaging. The NBA doesn’t need any of college basketball’s dewy-eyed moralizing, it needs a full undressing, it needs to be treated like the multi-billion dollar industry that it is. TNT’s basketball theme song runs lock-step with the network’s approach. The song feels newscast-y, unforgiving and substantive. Games on TNT always feel more dramatic, while games on ESPN seem to blend into the regular season backdrop a bit more. I credit the song, and the network that “knows drama” for that effect.
7. ESPN College Football Theme
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Let’s first admit that writing theme music for college football is easy, or at least obvious. You don’t need to go far for inspiration with a sport that already has such a rich musical legacy, where the sounds of bands and fight songs give the game its pulsing personality. Predictably, ESPN’s drumline-inspired college football theme draws heavily on the big sounds of the big games. But what it lack in creativity it makes up for in tonal aptitude. The song seamlessly melds band and studio, creating a memorable Saturday backdrop.
6. NFL on Fox
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Now the NFL on Fox has its flaws. Most of the broadcasting teams are cliche-spitting drones, the pregame show lost its folksy charm years ago, and those robots, oh those robots. The theme song can’t redeem FOX’s missteps, but it comes surprisingly close. The mishmash of august trumpets and rocket-launcher sound effects captures the essence of football’s fanbase: suburban males who pine for a “simpler time” while fetishizing modern convenience. The NFL on FOX actually feels like a modern game, and its theme song aptly represents a sport whose popularity relies as much on advanced plastics and wireless headsets as it does on blood, sweat, and leather helmets. On FOX the NFL gets its flat-screen moment without betraying the sport’s pre-digital beginnings.
Full disclosure: I’m an NFC guy through and through, and familiarity often breeds admiration in the world of theme songs.’
5. Sportscenter Theme
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Everyone has their morning ritual. Mine looks like this: shower, cereal, teeth (time permitting), and SportsCenter (no exceptions). And I’m not alone in my devotion to the ESPN flagship. Over the past 30 years the SportsCenter Theme has evolved from a great song into a standalone cultural reference. See a nice play live? Sing the SportsCenter theme. Friend hits a tough shot? Sing the SportsCenter Theme. Dad dives to exterminate a wayward squirrel? Sing the SportsCenter Theme. It’s the only sports theme song that conveys a value judgment, AND it doesn’t even have words. Six notes that changed the sporting landscape: Dah-na-nuh, Da-na-nuh.
4. Olympics Theme (NBC)
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Every two years we care, desperately, about amateurs playing sports we hardly understand. We memorize terms like “pummel horse” and “nordic combine” in order to bask in that Olympic glow. The Olympics has always maintained a sort of self-righteousness, a stately spirit derived from the idea that the Games somehow transcend athletics. In a world of doping and blatant professional participation, the symbolism seems a bit outdated. But, cynical as I am, I can’t help but feel that the Olympics still projects a kind of majesty. Perhaps it is NBC’s regal broadcast theme song that engenders these Utopian visions. The beckoning trumpets are both memorable and meaningful, giving the Olympiad an intentionally resplendent aura. The Olympics might not differ much from the NBA anymore, but on NBC those two weeks still feel distinguished.
To clarify, I’m not referring to the Olympic themes composed by John Williams. I’m referring to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2QHd4IXHDE&feature=related
3. Roundball Rock (The NBA on NBC)
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Roundball Rock isn’t just a great theme song, it’s a great pop song. The John Tesh score might be the most musically superior theme song in all of sports, so much so that Nelly famously sampled it for his 2004 hit “Heart of a Champion.” But this song was great before the St. Lunatic brought it to the hip hop world’s attention. Roundball Rock defined the NBA in the 1990s, the height of Jordan’s powers, the classic ‘94 clash between Ewing and Hakeem, Stockton to Malone, Barkley to himself, Isaiah, Penny, Shaq, C-Webb, it was a brilliant decade for the league. A brilliant decade deserves a brilliant theme song, and NBC delivered.
2. ABC Wide World of Sports Theme
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This is the rare theme song that triumphs despite its music. In truth, the song is a sort of sleepy, secondary backdrop for the iconic oratory recited over top it. Stanley Ralph Ross’ opening monologue is a landmark in sport’s broadcasting history, and one of television’s most memorable intros. “The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” emerged as a standout line, so much so that its become well-worn aphorism for the emotional extremes of competition. Few phrases enter into our cultural lexicon so seamlessly, a fitting tribute to a show that revolutionized our sporting landscape.
1. Monday Night Football Theme (Hank Williams Jr.)
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This song didn’t just re-energized Monday Night Football in the early 90s, it redeemed an entire day of the week. That’s heavy lifting for a theme song, and the reason why the MNF theme lands at this lofty perch. As cliched as it sounds, Mondays really do suck, especially Monday nights. You stumble home, sink into the couch cushions, and stew in the seeming infinity of your proverbial tunnel. The very thought of completing four more work days before the weekend thwarts any attempt at regeneration.
There is only one phrase, one question that can neutralize despair so molasses thick. “Are You Ready for Some Football?” Hank Williams Junior and his country-rock ensemble blast those six words with a bell-ringing authority that can enthuse the most disenchanted office jockey. This is soul-lifting stuff, straight from the heartland to the heart.
Ok, so II may be exaggerating, but not by much. Monday Night Football is always right on time, and the theme song manages to convey familiarity without losing its invigorating essence. No other theme song maintains that standard, and no show means so much to those idling in the 40-hour world. For us it is a battle cry:
Am I ready for some football? Yes, yes I am.
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