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    NFL 

    College Football 

    MLB 
  • The themes for MLB on Fox, used from 1996-2006, revived in 2007, but was replaced with the NFL theme on main telecasts after 2010. Sister networks FS1 and the Fox Sports Regional Networks use the 2007 theme, but Fox telecasts continued to use the NFL theme through 2019 before returning to the 1996 theme in 2020.
  • ESPN's Baseball Tonight theme, also used for game broadcasts on Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday night games, as well as their playoff games. Which means, as of 2020, it's also the ABC baseball theme, as the expanded opening wild card series that year meant ABC broadcast baseball for the first time in 35 years.
  • The MLB Network MLB Tonight theme, brought to you by E.S. Posthumus.
  • TBS's baseball theme, which is most associated with their postseason coverage.
  • CBS' MLB theme used from 1990-93, which was brought back in 2015 (after an absence of 22 years) for the network's college baseball coverage (probably most associated with the Toronto Blue Jays' back-to-back 1992 and 1993 World Series Championship seasons for Canadian baseball fans, and the 1991 World Series title for Minnesota for fans of the Twins).
  • TSN used the EPIC 'Knock Wood' by Edd Kalehoff for their coverage of the Blue Jays and the Expos starting in 1991. It's probably the ONLY theme song that can accurately describe, in musical form, the heights of Toronto's jubilation over Joe Carter's title-winning homer in 1993.
  • TSN shared a theme song with CBC and CTV for the Jays and Expos, which isn't too bad itself. It was the master baseball theme when Labatt Breweries Ltd. in Canada heavily sponsored the telecasts of those teams, until all three networks got their own theme songs in 1991.
  • NBC's MLB theme used from 1986-89.
  • TBS had a rockin'-yet-majestic theme composed by Edd Kalehoff for their coverage of Atlanta Braves baseball in 1996.
  • ABC's Monday Night Baseball theme from the '80s.
  • The syndicated This Week in Baseball had a great opening theme ("Jet Set", composed by former Manfred Mann guitarist Mike Vickers and previously used as the theme for the NBC game show Jackpot) and closing theme (John Scott's "Gathering Crowds").
  • Sportsnet up in Canada introduced an unexpectedly epic orchestral theme for its Toronto Blue Jays games in 2012.
  • Steve Goodman's Cubs victory song "Go Cubs Go!" is a national anthem for Cubbie nation and ever since 2007 every home victory is topped with Wrigley Field singing the song. It will never sound better than this.
  • Baseball closers nowadays often enter games to hard rock/metal songs, the best known being Trevor Hoffman coming onto the field to "Hell's Bells" and Mariano Rivera entering to "Enter Sandman".

    NBA 
  • The intro for the NBA on NBC. The song is called "Roundball Rock", written by John Tesh. After they lost the NBA to ESPN, the fans nostalgically rejoiced when NBC revived it for their coverage of basketball at the 2008 Summer Olympics. "Roundball Rock" has since had a resurgence thanks to UrinatingTree using it as the theme for his "Tank Bowl" segments of his "This Week in Sportsball" videos. He himself even calls the song an Ear Worm in the comments of said video! The theme also made its way to Fox for their college basketball telecasts in the late 2010s.note 
  • Between 1992 and 1996, the closing song during the last game of the NBA Finals featured "Winning It All" for the British rock band The Outfield (this example from 1996).
  • The NBA on CBS theme from the 1980s.
  • Edd Kalehoff, as part of his comprehensive package for Turner Sports, also composed this piece for the NBA on TNT in 1995. Can't you just feel the excitement?
  • There's a good reason the current TNT theme by Trevor Rabin (who also was in the band Yes) has been used by NBA on TNT since 2003. The epic sounds made in the introduction when TNT begins their showcase, followed by the nice orchestral style tones to show how inviting the TNT cast of Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and (as of 2011) Shaquille O'Neal, always are from one season to the next.
  • The Chicago Bulls begin every home game by blaring "Sirius" by The Alan Parsons Project through the United Center speakers. It leaves an impression, especially when combined with the PA announcement: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND NOW, THE STARTING LINEUP FOR YOUR CHICAGO BULLS!" So much so, in fact, that their official YouTube channel also includes the mention of it being the Chicago Bulls' theme song for the song itself, like even they know how impactful it really is. A few other NBA franchises used it also for their starting line-up introductions, including the Phoenix Suns throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, but there's a reason why most people know it for the Jordan Bulls.
    • There's also a remixed version done for "The Last Dance" documentary of the impact those Bulls teams had, especially during the 1997-98 season, and it's just as awesome to listen to as the original!
    • From the same documentary, "Vengeance" by Zack Hemsey embodies the last moments of that championship season for the Bulls, including the final shot by Michael Jordan and the last play not long afterward, that really capped off the awesome documentary of those Bulls teams from the 1990s up until Jordan's second retirement in 1998.
  • Not to be outdone by the Bulls, though beginning a few years earlier at the Silverdome, the Detroit Pistons used 'The Final Countdown' by Swedish hard rock band Europe for their pre-game player intros (cue Pistons announcer John Mason's intense introduction of Rasheed Wallace).
  • Like other teams in other professional leagues, even the NBA has had some teams have their own theme songs to represent their awesomeness at hand. Case in point, the Phoenix Suns have their own theme song created back in the 1990s and early 2000s that can be best described as progressive jazz rock that makes one glad to see their games in general on local Arizona TV. In 2023, with the return of the Suns to broadcast TV, the team introduced a remastered version of the theme.
  • The New York Knicks had this song as their intro for the 1993-94 season that combined the "Go New York, Go New York, Go!" chant from their Go New York, Go rap song with jazz and synth rock to make their own brand of awesomeness at live games.

    College Basketball 
  • CBS's college basketball theme by Bob Christianson, used since 1992, is the soundtrack of March Madness. Another song closely associated with CBS's coverage is "One Shining Moment", which is traditionally played over a highlights montage at the end of the NCAA tournament. It may be an Award-Bait Song, but has equally become an essential part of the tournament for many viewers.
  • ESPN's previous college basketball theme (used until 2017, but still used for NCAA tournament coverage by Canadian counterpart TSN) may not be in the same league as the CBS theme, but it still conveys the tenseness and energy of the game.

    NHL 
  • Dolores Claman's "Hockey Theme", considered by many to be Canada's real national anthem. Used for 40 years on Hockey Night In Canada and currently on TSN's NHL coverage. Several arrangements exist; even Rush drummer Neil Peart arranged and recorded a version in 2009. It was also released as a downloadable song for Rock Band.
  • The original version of the current Hockey Night theme (pre-Rogers takeover), "Canadian Gold", might not have the same legacy, but it's still got a lot of raw energy. When Sportsnet took over HNIC, the theme was heavily rearranged into a slower, orchestral style.
  • The theme music for Comcast SportsNet/NBC Sports's regional broadcasts gives a great sense of "welcome to the arena!" as the game starts and goes underway.
  • Who says Americans can't come up with their own hockey theme? This theme has accompanied NBC's coverage since their first season in 2006.
  • The old theme when ESPN had coverage of the NHL. Game version here. With the move of the NCAA Frozen Four final to ESPN proper in 2014, they brought it back for its coverage, and then debuted a remastered version in 2021 when the network regained the league's broadcast rights.
  • This '90s intro for the New York Rangers on MSG, heavily associated with their 94 Stanley Cup win. They even brought it back for nostalgia in 2019. Edd Kalehoff at his finest.
  • Goal horns and songs.
  • When TNT picked up NHL TV rights in 2021, they did not skimp on the theme they produced for their coverage.

    Association Football 
  • It doesn't get much better than the Official UEFA Champions League Theme, adapted by Tony Britten from George Frederic Handel's coronation anthem "Zadok the Priest". And "Zadok the Priest" has itself been used for every British coronation since George II in 1727. The Bible verses that make up the lyrics have been recited at every English, then British coronation since Edgar in 973, so Tony Britten was following a truly awesome lead. To borrow the words of BBC Radio 5 commentator Alan Green as it played before the 2011 final:
    "Don't you just love that anthem? Doesn't it... make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up? You feel special!"
  • The theme tune for Long Runner summary show Match of the Day was voted the most recognisable theme tune in British television history in 2010, and with such an immediately catchy, upbeat brass fanfare, it's not hard to see why it's so memorable.
  • In terms of fan anthems, the one adopted first and most famously by Liverpool FC, then by Celtic FC and most recently, Borussia Dortmund, is probably the most famous; 'You'll Never Walk Alone', originally by Rodgers and Hammerstein, before coming to popular notice in Liverpool when recorded by local band Gerry and the Pacemakers. It has, since then, been sung at every Liverpool match without fail and the title of the song has been sewn into the club's crest and added to the top of the famous Shankly Gates. It's also sung by about half the teams in the German Bundesliga (most famously Borussia Dortmund and FC St. Pauli), Dutch teams Feyenoord and FC Twente, Scotland giant Celtic, Japanese team FC Tokyo, Italy's Genoa CFC, Belgium's Club Brugge and Spain's CD Lugo. This is not an exhaustive list, and the head of the Spanish Olympic Committee remarked in 2007 after witnessing a rendition of the song at Anfield, Liverpool's home stadium, that he felt inspired to seek lyrics for Spain's currently lyric-less national anthem, the Marcha Real. It's a catchy song.
  • ESPN's majestic World Cup 2010 theme by Lisle Moore. The EURO 2012/2014 World Cup intro remix didn't diminish its power and the proper 2014 version adds a spirited Latin beat. Then EURO 2016 took it even further.
  • The 2010 World Cup Anthem seen here. Pure, unbridled joy and triumph.
  • It's easy to get in the mood for some World Cup with a great TV opening. Just see what was done in 2014 and 2018.
  • "Three Lions" by The Lightning Seeds, Frank Skinner, and David Baddiel, so much so that the line "Football's Coming Home" (especially during England's Euro '96 campaign, held on English soil, and where they went out in the semis, on penalties) can be heard at most England matches these days, and the song consistently charts every World Cup and European Championshipnote , in some cases consigning the official song to obscurity.
  • For the 1998 World Cup, ITV used a remix of Jean-Michel Jarre's "Fourth Rendez-vous", "Rendez-vous '98", with English electronica group Apollo 440.
  • New Order's "World In Motion", written for the English campaign at The World Cup in 1990, is quite inspiring, even if you're not English. It was their only #1 hit in their native UK ("Blue Monday" peaked at #5).
  • Thankfully, Fox did not use its other piece of football music for the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, electing to instead go with a majestic theme that wouldn't sound out of place during the Olympics (and has since become Fox's default theme music for international soccer). Fox then tapped the Russian composer Kirill Richter for its 2018 FIFA World Cup theme, "Where Angels Fear to Tread".
  • The English Premier League Anthem in the mid-2000s - for many fans rarely matched by the quality of the football.
  • The official theme song for UEFA Euro 2000, "Campione 2000" by E-Type, gained huge popularity during the tournament and has since been heard in national and international football games all around Europe.

    Other 
General
  • The opening theme music for ABC's Wide World Of Sports, combined with Jim McKay's narration, is the perfect representation of "The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat!" (Cue poor ol' Vinko Bogataj going off the ski jump...) Kalehoff-ified in 1989.
  • The now-retired BBC Grandstand.
  • NBC Sports had a great instrumental theme in the '70s, used for its NFL coverage as well as college football, baseball, hockey, etc. It was so popular that a group called Midnite Flite turned the piece into a big disco hit called "Don't Turn Away".
  • Edd Kalehoff composed an entire music package for Turner Sports (both TBS and TNT) in the mid-1990s, dubbed Victory Road. Here's the full version. Also try the horn-flavored hip version.
  • Kalehoff strikes again (noticing a pattern here?) with his 1993 ABC Sports theme — utterly epic when used to open and close any kind of sporting event. Especially with the closing announcement:
    Dan Foley: This has been a presentation of ABC Sports — Recognized around the world, as the leader in sports television! [laser zaps]

Aussie Rules Football

Competitive Video Gaming / eSports

  • "Evolve", the official song of the Evolution Championship Series, the biggest fighting game tournament in the world. Its closing beat combined with vocalist Kanami's One-Woman Wail serves as the theme for the intro bumpers on Evo streams, and cuts of the song were used as a part of ESPN's coverage of Evo 2016. In 2022, with Evo's return to offline play after the COVID-19 pandemic and reorganzing under new management, the theme was remixed into "Evolve Infinity", a new take signaling a fresh start for the venerable tournament.

Cricket

  • "Up There, Cazaly" was created by Channel 7 as an attempt to outdo Channel 9's Cricket theme, "C'mon, Aussie, C'mon".
  • The instrumental theme for Channel 9's cricket broadcasts is short, but awesome, as is the 2000s rock version.
  • Channel 10 uses AC/DC's "TNT" for the Big Bash League.
  • As should be becoming evident by the now, the BBC has a reputation for sporting theme tunes that pass into the English sporting consciousness. Here is "Soul Limbo" by Booker T & the MG's, the definitive intro to Test Match Cricket. While not as awesome, "Mambo no. 5" was still a catchy intro when Channel 4 acquired the rights.
  • "Howzat" by 1970s Australian rock band Sherbet was, and is still, used as a popular choice of song for limited-overs cricket matches.

Golf

  • The Masters is a tournament that is steeped in tradition. Dave Loggins' iconic theme music is just one of them. It stands out as a significant contrast to almost every other entry on this entire page, trading the bombastic orchestras and synthesizers for piano and acoustic guitar (although it's only used as the main theme; CBS, in practice, tends to break out some of the normal library music it uses during other PGA Tour events over highlights and features, which is usually a lot more bombastic).
  • Yanni is a popular choice for TV networks' sports themes, and for good reason: "In Celebration of Man" (NBC's USGA championships theme) and his former PGA theme for CBS are both epic. NBC briefly lost the U.S. Open to Fox in 2015, but quickly brought back "In Celebration of Man" when it started airing The Open Championship the following year (using a slight remix with bagpipes added).
  • For the PGA Tour's Players Championship (it's not a major, but the PGA Tour treats it as its flagship tournament, and it has one of the largest purses of the entire season), NBC brings out the theme from The Man from Snowy River.
  • When Fox won the rights to broadcast USGA events from 2015 to 2026, the network commissioned Brian Tyler to compose their theme music, which appropriately has a strident, cinematic sound. After it surrendered the rights to the events to NBC in 2020, Fox has recycled the theme for other events requiring more formal theme music (such as the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show and the Belmont Stakes).

Horse Racing

  • Before the running of the Kentucky Derby horse race, it is traditional to play the Stephen Foster song "My Old Kentucky Home" (Kentucky's official state song). And during this, the entire crowd in the stands (which is usually well over 100,000 people) joins in and sings along. They even put the lyrics on the TV screens, so those watching at home can join in.
  • The other two U.S. Triple Crown races have similar traditional prerace music:
    • The Preakness Stakes, held in Baltimore, is preceded by that state's official song, "Maryland, My Maryland".
    • The Belmont Stakes, held just outside New York City, has changed its music a couple of times. Through 1996, "The Sidewalks of New York" was played during the post parade. Then, it was changed to Frank Sinatra's recording of the "Theme from New York, New York". This has remained the official song ever since, except in 2010 when Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind" was used instead.

Mixed Martial Arts

Motorsport

  • Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain", used for BBC's Formula 1 coverage This fan intro shows why it's so good. THIS is how it was reintroduced when the BBC got the rights back off ITV. Having not heard "The Chain" as the theme tune for 13 years, and not being sure if they were going to bring it back or not... CMoA?
  • In Brazil, Globo used an original fanfare for F1 that's also awesome (many comments note how the one bad thing about F1 leaving for another channel after years Screwed by the Network is losing this theme, even if theirs is also uplifting). And repurposed a good song by one of Keith Mansfield's former bands for one of their sports shows. In Japan, Fuji TV uses the incredibly catchy Truth by jazz fusion band T-Square to open the broadcasts. In Italy, Sky Sports uses Tutto quello che ho by pop rock band Finley, instead.
  • The BBC's outro to the 2010 Formula One season had some pretty epic music to go with the video. So epic that Sky Sports F1 have used it as their theme tune since taking over the main coverage.
  • The FIA's F1 jingle that plays 5 mins before the race was pretty awesome back in the '90s. Brian Tyler's theme made for the 2018 season is no slouch, either, with an epic orchestra reminiscent of Pirates of the Caribbean, and it's only made even more awesome when accompanied by the official intro.
  • The Indianapolis 500 traditionally opens with the singing of "Back Home Again in Indiana". From the early '70s to 2014, this had almost always been done by actor Jim Nabors (of Gomer Pyle fame), backed up by the Purdue University Marching Band. Jim Cornelison, who took over as the regular singer in 2017, has turned in some spine-chillingly good renditions.
    • The theme of The Delta Force was associated with Cold Opening montages for the 500 narrated by Paul Page, who was formerly ABC's lead commentator. They became so synonymous with Page that he apparently told ABC not to do Delta Force intros unless he was the one narrating. When Page returned to the booth to call the radio broadcast of the 2014 race, he even brought the song with him (for that year, anyway. The radio broadcast returned to its own signature theme, "The 500", the following year).
    • On the television side, ABC's IndyCar Series theme (heard on the 500 and several other events) is also quite epic.
  • Again, from Edd Kalehoff, both versions of the NASCAR on TBS theme. The first was used in early 1997, and the second was used late in 1997 and up until 2000.
  • CBS also had some awesome themes for their NASCAR broadcasts. Both the 1995-1997 note  opening and closing themes capture the essence of "badass", but the 1998-2000 theme truly captures the essence of race day. It was also used in CBS' broadcasts of Indy Racing League races in 1998.
  • Fox's NASCAR theme maintains a lineage with the NFL on Fox theme, yet still manages to convey the spectacle of race day. For a time it was, unfortunately, replaced by said NFL theme outright, but the original music was reinstated in 2016 with the arrival of recently-retired Jeff Gordon.

Olympics

Rugby Union

  • "World in Union", which has been the theme song for every Rugby World Cup since 1991, is based on "I Vow to Thee, My Country" by Gustav Holst (itself based on the centre section of "Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity" from his orchestral suite The Planets), and is every bit as majestic as the tournament demands. Just a few lines, especially as sung by New Zealand-born opera singer Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, and you'll be swept up in the grandeur and excitement of rugby union's finest battling it out on the pitch for the glory of being crowned world champions.

Skiing

  • Great Britain may never have been a skiing superpowernote , but that didn't stop the BBC - naturally, going by the number of its appearances on this page - choosing to use "Pop Looks Bach" by Sam Fonteyn for its Ski Sunday programme and coverage of the Winter Olympics (until 2006).

Snooker

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