United Soccer League To Make Broadcast-TV Debut, Ushers in New CBS Partnership With Biggest Production in League History

New animation package and theme music will be introduced on Saturday

Saturday marks a massive day — and the dawn of a new era — in the 14-year history of the burgeoning United Soccer League.

The USL, a Division II league directly under Major League Soccer in U.S. soccer hierarchy, kicks off a new four-year media-rights agreement with CBS Sports. The occasion will be marked with a new graphics package and a new theme song debuting on Saturday’s broadcast of the Indy Eleven at Louisville City FC on CBS (4 p.m. ET), the league’s first-ever appearance on broadcast television.

Additionally, the USL, its production/operations partner NEP/VISTA Worldlink, and CBS Sports will meet the moment with the largest production effort ever for a USL match. A fully onsite production will feature a crew of more than 50 people, 16 cameras, and some of this country’s most seasoned soccer storytellers at the helm.

“The talents that you see at CBS with all of their big shows have been put forth into this production,” says USL EVP, Media, Michael Cohen, who, quite fittingly, was lead producer for Major League Soccer’s first game on the same date 28 years ago (April 6, 1996). “It’s huge that they’ve stepped up for us. We respect the fact that [after] a Super Bowl, March Madness, and The Masters, they’ve dedicated the time. We truly value the partnership.”

Saturday’s broadcast is the first of three nationally televised games on CBS this season. As part of the agreement, another 22 games will appear on CBS Sports Network, and 75 games will air live on Paramount’s FAST Channel and the CBS Sports Golazo Network. The remaining inventory of games will be distributed across the ESPN family of networks: ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN+.

The USL’s new graphics package differentiates the league from other soccer properties and identifies it across CBS channels.

For Paramount and CBS Sports, the partnership with the USL is another piece in its growing portfolio of soccer leagues, which already includes the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, Italy’s top-flight Serie A, and the U.S. National Women’s Soccer League.

“The CBS Sports brand has a lot of credibility within the soccer community, and that has been hard-earned,” says Julie Keryc, senior coordinating producer, outside remote production, CBS Sports. “In this partnership, where we partner with a league that is producing their own games, my goal and the goal of CBS Sports is to make sure that these productions are living up to the very high standards we set. That is certainly the case here, and we feel strongly about the production plan that the USL has in place.”

New Graphics Package Elevates Brand

A major piece of the new partnership is collaboration on a new graphics and animation package: a wall-to-wall design that could be used not just for games on broadcast but across the league’s entire season of live games. “I think [the animation package] is a big part of differentiating the USL from our other soccer properties and making sure it has its unique visuals and unique brand across all of our channels,” says Keryc.

The CBS Sports crew developed a look for the league’s teams as well as the overall design.

The overall design aims to capture the spirit of the USL, its fanbases, and the various markets its teams call home. Animations feature soccer scarves in a nod to the popular fan accessory. Says Keryc, “We tried to make the fans feel like they were a part of it and to give a nod to all these local markets that are passionately behind their team.”

The CBS Sports graphics-design team, including Art Director Carlos Molina and Senior Motion Designer Jason Dooley, led the way in tailoring the package to CBS platforms while also leaving room for a more generalized version that can be seamlessly applied to all USL broadcast partners. Designers used OctaneRender to build advanced photorealistic graphics.

‘Inclusive’ Theme Music For a New Era

Meanwhile, CBS Sports flexed its collaborative muscle, working directly with the USL in composing and producing a new theme song for the league’s television broadcasts.

“United Pulse: Heartbeat of the USL” is composed by Joe Sicurella, whose résumé includes such sports-TV themes as the current CBS College Football Theme and past iterations of The NFL Today (1983-1993) and NBA on CBS (1983-1990) themes. He worked with veteran composer Nathan Padgett to develop a theme that fit the league’s personality while capturing the energy both on the field and in the stands at a USL match.

“Elevating the brand was definitely a goal for the theme as well,” says Keryc, “making sure that the theme [conveys] the importance that we feel USL has in the soccer community.”

Sicurella’s career is stacked with experience across not just the sports industry but in music, entertainment, and advertising as well. The multi-Emmy nominee has composed themes for NBC Nightly News and collaborated on projects with Aretha Franklin, Johnny Cash, and Whitney Houston.

Padgett, for his part, is an award-winning composer, songwriter, arranger, and orchestrator and created the musical theme for ESPN’s ACC Network when it launched in 2019. He has also composed music for the Walt Disney Co., Mercedes-Benz, and Procter & Gamble.

The duo also worked with Adam Joseph, head of creative/executive music producer, Crowd Pleaser Music, on the USL theme.

During development of the theme, Cohen was tasked with expressing key words and or concepts to help guide the creative process. With the league’s top teams residing largely in midsize media markets and the USL extending all the way down to the youth level, words that jumped out on the mood board included accessible and inclusive.

“It’s a process,” notes Cohen.” You don’t just sit there going, ‘We’re writing a theme.’ It’s thinking, what does USL sound like? What does the USL represent? To us, the USL is the most accessible soccer league in the country, with an ecosystem from youth to pro. We knew we didn’t want gladiators entering the arena. We knew what we were and what we weren’t.”

Tools for a Top-Flight Team

All of that important groundwork has set the stage for Saturday’s USL debut on broadcast television. According to Cohen, production of the Indy Eleven–Louisville City FC match will be the largest in the league’s history. The operational plan calls for 16 game cameras, including a live drone, a jib, and two super-slo-mos.

A scarf theme in animations is a nod to a popular accessory among soccer fans.

More notable than the gear, however, is the sheer power of the production and operations talent working the broadcast for the broadcaster and the league. Producer Sharni Yerke, who recently worked the FIFA World Cup for FOX Sports and has been lead producer on USL live match coverage since 2017, will be at the front bench. She will sit alongside a familiar partner in director Mike Roth, whose career spans four decades. His finest moments include directing the famous 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup Final at the Rose Bowl, which featured the iconic Brandi Chastain penalty-kick winner that sealed the U.S. Women’s National Team’s second world championship.

Then, of course, there’s Cohen, arguably the most-experienced soccer-television executive in the U.S. In addition to getting Major League Soccer’s TV product off the ground in the 1990s, he has played a lead role in two men’s and two women’s FIFA World Cups and worked in nine Olympic Games (including four overseeing soccer world-feed production).

“I learned a long time ago in my career that it’s not the wand, it’s the magician,” he says. “We can have all the toys in the world, but the people and expertise that we have in the key positions on our production team are fantastic. Sharni has been a lead producer for USL for many years, and very few people in this country have directed as much soccer as Mike; he has always brought his expertise and leadership. Having people in the right positions and making the key decisions makes a difference when we need to show [our partners] that we can cover a professional soccer game as well as anyone.”

Another familiar friend on hand for the match is longtime production-operations partner, VISTA Worldlink, providing facilities and crew. Led by Vista Worldlink Executive Producer Mike Freedman, the team will produce Saturday’s show onsite out of NEP NCP VII truck. VISTA Worldlink Director, Live Events, Steven Kravitz is also on hand, and production/project managers Hildelisa Gonzalez and Cindy Salguero played an integral role in the plan.

Saturday will be a sentimental moment for the VISTA Worldlink team, whose members have worked with the USL since its early days of delivering games to YouTube. “[The league] had no linear partner,” Freedman says, “and now to bring them to the CBS mothership is incredible. I started my career [with CBS Sports], my brother is a director there, and I still have friends all around the league. This is special for the league and for us.”