Foxing what ain't broke

The goofy robots, Joe Buck, Tony Siragusa, the theme song that sounds too much like the Sleigh Ride Song... and Fox's NFL broadcast presentations are still head and shoulders above that which CBS dishes out in woeful fashion every Sunday.

Well, friends, that gap is about to close considerably as Fox will be adding in-game "mood music" to their football telecasts.

A new kind of NFL scoring: adding music to TV game coverage.
Don't laugh. Fox will formally announce today that it will do that on its regional Arizona Cardinals-Carolina Panthers game Sunday (1 p.m. ET) after an unannounced test on last week's Seattle Seahawks-San Francisco 49ers game. Fox Sports President Eric Shanks on whether such soundtracks will pop up on Fox's upcoming Super Bowl: "It's a possibility."

Given you're bombarded with mood-prompting music in TV shows, ads and movies — and in stadiums and arenas during games — it's seems inevitable that sideline shots of, say, Bill Belichick could end up being accentuated by Lady Gaga's Poker Face. That's Jay-Z's I Know What Girls Like taking us inside the heads of kickers who just made game-winning field goals. Cue It's Raining Men as players run out of tunnels. Everything going wrong for a team? Who you gonna call?Ghostbusters!

Fox's Shanks says game playlists could include famous artists — "the rule is you use it just once and don't edit it" — but will also draw on original medleys. For Sunday's game, Fox has 15 new cuts from James Cardoni, who has composed music for the prime-time show CSI.

But having cuts you'd hear in movies, like spooky chords when babysitters find out the calls are coming from inside the house, is one thing. Knowing when to use them is another. "This is all in the execution," Shanks says. "Just like music in movies, you have to use it at the right times. And imagine trying to score a movie the first time you're seeing it." Plus, he says, announcers during last week's test game needed to get their groove on "to get a feel whether to keep talking or let the music build the suspense or drama for the next play."

Just how bad will it sound? Take a listen for yourself as Fox sprung an announced demo run during last week's Seahawk/Niner game.







Do us a favor, Fox Sports. Keep the mood music with Harry Kalas, John Facenda and NFL Films.


Over-dramatizing Seahawks/Niners does an injustice to Sweetness, Gale, Barry, LT, Jim and other true NFL legends.





H/T: Hot Air