All My Rowdy Friends Are Signing Record Deals With Music Libraries

Music libraries are targeting sports-broadcast production with renewed emphasis via exclusively licensed music. Killer Tracks, one of the largest music libraries serving broadcast, announced at the NAB Show this week that it has been signing original-music artists and has been particularly seeking artists whose music pairs well with sports programming.

For instance, Killer Tracks VP David Gurule says his company recently signed Rev Theory, whose aggressive rock tracks have been a favorite for sports themes and bumper music. Killer Tracks provides library music to such sports programmers as ESPN, NBC Sports, and Fox Sports.

The trend reverses a long-standing custom of repurposing existing major-label rock and country-music tracks for sports themes and miscellaneous music or using established artists to create or adapt original music for network sports shows. Hank Williams Jr.’s iconic “All My Rowdy Friends,” for instance, was used as the theme song for ABC’s Monday Night Football from 1989 to 2011.

Many of the music libraries clustered in the South Hall of the LVCC showed sports themes. 615 Music, for example, had Versus network’s professional bull riding (PBR) video running on a display in its booth.

“We’ve launched extra new music catalogs that are completely sports-oriented in recent months,” says Ron Mendelsohn, CEO of music library Megatrax. Some of that has been generated by the company’s signing the composing/production team that has composed much of the theme and bumper music for Fox Sports. “That’s been the trend for sports music lately. Music libraries are the new record labels, and sports has become a huge consumer of original music.”

SVG will offer more-comprehensive coverage of this trend soon.