Top 5 SportsCenter Commercials

Ok. After posting this last night and promising this post, here we go. I now present you the Top 5 SportsCenter Commercials of all-time.

(Disclaimer: Trying to pick the best five SportsCenter Commercials is very difficult. As I have said, it's the best ad-campaign that I've ever seen, and every commercial is funny. So making a list so exclusive is hard. And of course, if you disagree with my list, then post your favorites in the comments section. Many of them are on YouTube.

5. Studio Rivalries
The idea for this commercial is great, because it the idea of an anchor/reporter rivalry actually exists in some places, and maybe it did at one point at ESPN. But what makes this a standout commercial are the taunts and jeers between anchor and reporter, and the final scene. The interaction between Sal Paolantonio and Rich Eisen causes me to giggle every time. (And as a quick aside, don't you miss Rich Eisen on SportsCenter? I certainly do.)



4. Big Buddy
This is a hilarious mockery about ESPN giving back to the community, as anchors and former NBA players play basketball with children. The best part of course is how the anchors take the game far too seriously. I don't know which is better: the Stuart Scott block on one kid or Kenny Mayne's line at the end.



3. Gheorghe Muresan Dancing
Gheorghe Muresan was a great sport, and he's featured here in one of the best scenes in SportsCenter commercial history. The dance scene with Karl Ravech and Kenny Mayne makes me burst into hysterics every time. If you don't find this funny, well, you don't know what humor is.



2. Y2K Preparations
Remember when people actually thought the world would come to an end when the clock turned to the year 2000? ESPN does a great job of mocking the hysteria that was prevalent in the time, and there's nothing better than Charlie Steiner's role at the end. Fantastic mockery and fantastic commercial.



1. The International SportsCenters
I posted this one last night, but I'll post it here again. There is no better TV commercial out there now, and hasn't been one since this. This is perfectly acted by Dan Patrick and Kenny Mayne, and the absurdities of this commercial is what makes it great. I have never laughed harder at any commercial than at this one. And how can you not love the classic old brown set in the background?



Send us your suggestions. Like I said, there are so many great ones. But these are the top five.

Best Sports Theme Songs: My Top Five

Often when we watch sporting events, we associate the theme songs with the events themselves.  A good theme song can often be key to event recognition.  After some careful consideration, here are my top five favorite sports theme songs.  Feel free to give us your top five in the comment section below.

5.  Monday Night Football Theme--ABC/ESPN--How can you not get excited for football when you hear "da da da duhhhhh" to start the broadcast.  ESPN cleverly created an ad campaign around the song when it acquired Monday Night Football from parent network ABC a couple years ago because the song is the most recognizable aspect of the product.  You know you're watching football on a Monday night when you hear this song come through your TV speakers.  It's got a powerful sound, and gets you ready for rough and tumble action and excitement to follow:

4.  The Old ESPN SportsCenter Song--I'm not talking about the new one that has a lot of repeated noise.  We're talking old school, Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann mid 1990s SportsCenter with that putrid brown set behind them.  We're talking saxophone blaring, "da duh da, da duh dah" SportsCenter.  Every sports fan older than ten years old remembers how great this song really was.  This was a classic, and if you ask me, ESPN should make the programming decision immediately to return this song to their feature product.

3.  MLB on FOX Theme--There is something majestic about the World Series, and growing up this was the song I always associated with playoff baseball on FOX.  I realize they play this theme for every baseball game they televise, but when the Cubs reached the NLCS in 2003 I remember getting goose-bumps hearing this song as the they faded up on Joe Buck and Tim McCarver in the broadcast booth at Wrigley Field.  And beyond the nostalgic feelings it may bring, it's a pump up song, no?  You could play this in an action movie or in 24 and it would get your heart pumping.

2.  NBA on NBC Theme--When the NBA used to be great, when it used to bring in top ratings, this was the song that lead into the broadcast.  This was the song that brought Marv Albert into our homes for the game of the week, or Bob Costas.  It brought us Ahmad Rashad in studio, or Hannah Storm, or the likes of Peter Vescey.  If we were lucky, we'd even get the "Czar" Mike Fratello.  This was when the NBA was in its hey day, and man did this song get me stoked for some professional basketball.  This song conjures memories of Bulls/Jazz in the Finals, or Bulls/Knicks in a heated Saturday afternoon game.  I still smile when I listen to this song.

1.  CBS College Basketball Theme--There is no song that gets me more excited for any sporting event than this theme for March Madness.  In fact, my buddies and I once drove up to Milwaukee to catch the first couple rounds of the tournament at the Bradley Center in 2004.  When we got to the parking lot we put the windows down in the car and played this song on max volume while driving through the lot, and we continued doing so for about ten straight minutes.  (We made a CD with this song as all twelve tracks.  Yes, I realize we're a bunch of losers.)  When you watch a regular college hoops broadcast on CBS during the regular season, don't you get excited with anticipation about the tournament on the way?  That's how I've felt all day watching the UConn/Notre Dame and the LSU/Kentucky games.  This song is the ultimate sports theme song for me.

Like my list?  Hate my list?  Post comments below, and post your own top five.

I'm Trying To Watch This, But...

...I can't watch this coverage on Versus.

The NHL needs to get itself off Versus.  Immediately.

If you don't know what Versus is, it's a bizarre sports network that can sometimes not be found on your basic cable.  You sometimes can't even locate the channel it's so far down the list.  They show lots of outdoor shows, a show called "Sports Soup" and unfortunately, the NHL.

I'm not a regular watcher of this network, but I'm forced to watch it for the NHL All-Star weekend.  As a renewed hockey fan, I wanted to check out the five Blackhawks players participating in the weekend.  Instead of an enjoyable experience, as I expected, it has been more aggravating than anything else.

Yesterday, while watching the skills competition, they started festivities with the fastest skater competition.  Each of six skaters got to do one lap around the rink, with boundary markers show where they could navigate the ice.  Yet, the stopwatch graphic didn't work, and you couldn't tell how fast the skaters were skating until the broadcast team of Doc Emerick and Brian Engblom told you after the fact.  All you could see was a hockey player skating in a circle.  There was no suspense to see whether a record was broken or which skaeter was the fastest.  It looked like it was someone's YouTube video.

Still, I watched.  I watched as they showed the breakaway challenge, while never explaining what the skaters were supposed to accomplish.  They didn't show how much time was left until the players had five seconds left, nor did they tell you how much time they had.  So you couldn't gauge how quickly the players had to take their shots.  And it appears they're going to assume on all-star weekend they're only getting diehards to view the events.  Brutal.

But here was the kicker of the night.  Sideline reporter Chris Simpson (that's a woman) asked one all-star a question while using the word "sucks" in it.  I can see that from a talk show host, but not from a sideline reporter or a play by play guy.  She asked the player a question, "kinda sucks doesn't it?"  I don't remember the context, probably because I was so shocked by the usage of the word I blocked out the rest of the moment.

It's no secret the NHL has done a number of moronic things to decrease the popularity of their league.  But maybe the dumbest thing they ever did was associate with this terrible network.  There are students at college TV stations that probably watch this and think, "I'm good enough for this!"

Please, go back to ESPN.  I criticize them sometimes, sure, but they know how to put a sporting event on TV.