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.