For decades, the soundtrack of college football has been marching bands, cheerleaders and roaring fans. But lately it’s been getting an update via a partnership between Interscope and ESPN that’s brought some of contemporary music’s best artists to the field.
After launching the initiative last year, the relationship between Interscope and ESPN took off in 2016, highlighted by X Ambassadors And To M Nightshade“Collider,” which became an anthem on the sports network. Elsewhere, throughout the season, music from artists on Interscope’s roster – as well as Universal Nashville, Downtown Records and Universal Latin – debuted on the network and was featured in special locations, all hosting a holistic ecosystem for live performances during games leading up to the College Football Playoff National Championship.
“What we have in college football and what we have with the College Football Playoff, it’s not just a sporting event, it’s a cultural event, it’s a mainstream event,” said Emeka Ofodile, senior director of marketing at ESPN. “And we think leveraging genres like music can help us tell the story of college football to new audiences and bring different audiences to experience what college football is and what this whole great event is about college football.”
ESPN’s intention in working with Interscope was to record its college football season with a partnership beyond standard licensing deals, in hopes that they could increase the sport’s impact on current fans and new potentials. For Interscope, the goal was similar: to advance the profile of its artists with more access points for exhibition — something Steve Berman, vice president of Interscope Geffen A&M, considers a goal-wide of the company.
“You can’t get complacent with the idea that your promotions department is going to hit it out of the park,” Bermen says. “You need to surround that success with as many avenues of exposure as possible for your artists so that we can build that fan base and build the relationship between the fans and that artist. For us, we think that for the right artist, there is such a complement between the culture of ESPN and the music and that has really helped solidify the foundations of these artists.
Hire artists such as DJ Snake, The Perry Group, The struts, Jamie N Commons and more for various promotions, as well as music from Selena Gomez, Keith Urban, A republic, SchoolboyQ, Herd of horses, J.Balvin and more, Interscope and ESPN aimed to enhance certain aspects of the season’s stories with the right musical accompaniments along the way.
“It’s not just about putting music into college football, but how can we create a very collaborative music experience with the network? said Berman, who praised David Nieman, Interscope’s head of sports licensing and marketing, and Kevin Wilson, ESPN’s music director, for their work in making the partnership a success. “The relationship has only gotten stronger and we’ve been able to really work together and try things and we’re thrilled with the results.”
According to both parties, the key to this year’s successful relationship between ESPN and Interscope was developing programming in which all parties involved – particularly the artists – were invested in the content and its promotion.
Probably the best example of this is the use of the X Ambassadors and Morello’s “Collider”, which is now documented in a new promotional video presented exclusively with Billboard (see below). The artists and the song had the right qualities to make it work, from the theme to the hard-hitting, realistic rock and roll attitude, all contributing to the kind of story they wanted to tell.
“We thought the theme of ‘Collider’ fit perfectly with this idea of the road to the college playoffs, because what happens in college football is every weekend teams compete to to become the last four semi-finalists,” explains Ofodile. “So we thought there couldn’t be a better soundtrack to tell this season-long story. And the song has a certain edge and rock to it, and that’s the kind of thing we see every weekend in college football – it’s intense and it’s tough and there’s a lot at stake.”
Collider – College Football Playoffs Since ESPNMediaZone on Vimeo.
