A great sports television theme gets the viewer pumped up for the action about to take place.  Sometimes the theme ends up being better than the game itself.  This article is specifically about instrumental themes.  As enjoyable as Carrie Underwood (and Faith Hill before her) were to pump you up for a game of Sunday Night Football, I’m sticking with the classics.  The instrumentals.

Probably the most famous sports TV theme of all time, at least in the United States, is the original Monday Night Football theme:

My personal favorite in this day and age is the Fox NFL Sunday theme.  There is nothing quite like that first weekend of NFL action in the late summer.  Labor Day is gone and done with, the first crispness of the impending fall weather is in the air.  It is 1pm Eastern Time, time to watch the Detroit Lions have another horrible season, and here comes the current greatest sports theme on television:

CBS’s NFL theme is not bad in itself, but it pales in comparison to their rivals, the aforementioned Fox NFL Sunday theme.  In fact, I do not think it is even the best sports theme on the CBS Network.  I believe the SEC on CBS College Football theme is a rather underrated gem:

Another sports theme which is an underrated gem is the MLB on Fox theme.  It is not nearly as good as the Fox NFL Theme, but it holds a warm place in my heart.  After an unusually epic, extra-inning New York Yankee playoff game… come to think of it, it could have been when Derek Jeter became Mr. November against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2001 World Series… the MLB on Fox theme played under the closing highlights of the broadcast.  It felt as if the goosebump-inducing highlight reel went on for 10 minutes, all the while this theme kept playing.  Ever since then, it’s been one of my favorites.

Then there is the Olympics theme.  A masterpiece, a work of art created by the maestro John Williams (creator of themes to Star Wars, Jaws, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, and countless others).  Still going strong at 88 years old, perhaps he is the world’s greatest living writer of music.

There are three legendary sports themes which are missing in action these days.  Anyone that grew up in the Detroit area, or probably in any northern border town, is likely at least an occasional viewer of Canadian television.  Specifically, the CBC and its Hockey Night in Canada program.  As a kid, American national broadcasts of hockey games were few and far between.  I don’t think much hockey coverage even existed on American television, even during the playoffs, until ESPN2 came on the scene.  As a hockey-loving kid from a hockey-loving family, that meant one thing, watching Ron McLean and Don Cherry on CBET out of Windsor on Saturday nights.  My brothers and I played hockey in the driveway all winter long, freezing the day way.  Even playing into the dark of the evening, with the garage lights barely illuminating much of anything at all.  Then rushing in the house at 7pm just in time to hear the legendary theme.  These days that theme is heard only in regional broadcasts around Canada, as the song rights ended up on the wrong side of things when TV rights shifted around.  Bring back the Hockey Night in Canada theme to a prominent position, please!

The NBA has lost almost 50% of its viewers since Michael Jordan took his last shot.  There are probably lots of reasons for that.  Shifting television habits, cable cord-cutting, changes in the game itself, lack of defense, everything is a 3-point or a lay-up on offense, etc.  But I would like to think the loss of viewership might be because when the television rights switched from NBC to ABC, the NBA lost out on one of the greatest TV themes of all time.  John Tesh’s Roundball Rock needs to be brought back to television immediately.  Perhaps the best sports theme ever. 

Saturday morning as a kid.  Cartoons, The Smurfs, Bugs Bunny.  As I got older, there was Saved By The Bell, Hang Time, and Name Your Adventure.  Maybe I would change the channel over to some WWF Wrestling and watch Brutus the Barber, Hulk Hogan, King Kong Bundy, or the Brooklyn Brawler in the squared circle.  In the afternoon, at least in the Detroit area, the local station would air America’s Top 10, a video version of the Casey Kasem American Top 40 radio program.  I would watch Casey count down the top 10 videos every week.  Could Ray Parker Jr. hold on to that top spot for another week!?

 After America’s Top 10, WDIV in Detroit would air This Week In Baseball.  One of my favorite programs as a kid.  I think Mel Allen giving me the highlights of the week and giving me TWIB Notes is a key reason to why baseball became my favorite sport.  The end theme song was magical!  I would watch the highlights over the end credits, run out into the backyard, and throw a baseball around to myself, trying to reenact the highlights from those end credits.  I’ve always thought the when NBC created NBA Inside Stuff, it was their attempt to garner some of that This Week In Baseball magic.  But nothing was quite as epic as the TWIB theme:

Those are my favorite sports TV themes, what are yours? Did I forget your favorite? Tweet me and let me know if I forgot a good one! 

– MTR

You can follow MTR on Twitter and let him know what you think.