The Walt Disney Company prepares to launch its first season broadcasting “Southeastern Conference football under new 10-year media rights deal”. Ahead of Miami’s game against Florida on Saturday, August 31 at 3:30 p.m. EST, ESPN revealed that it has re-orchestrated its college football theme song from the late 1990s and early 2000s for the broadcast property. This revitalized theme song is a collaboration between the SEC, ESPN Music, the college football production team of ESPN and composer Bob Christianson, who also composed NHL on ESPN theme song.
The new musical composition presents elements of nostalgia and passion for viewers familiar with the SEC on ESPN broadcast property, and it will introduce these elements to the next generation of football fans and ABC network viewers. This new orchestration will be used exclusively for SEC home games on ABC, including those broadcast on prime time television. ABC Saturday Night Football and the noon EST window earlier in the day.
“Music is a crucial element in shaping the storytelling of any show,” Burke Magnus, president of content at ESPN, said in a statement. “The opportunity to resurrect a theme song that means so much to college football fans, and to many of us at ESPN, was important as we begin this new chapter in our relationship with the SEC.”
The ESPN College Football theme song has been used in several notable broadcasts within the former property itself, as well as a variety of additional applications. ESPN previously presented SEC football games in prime time on Saturday nights, under a previous media rights deal.
The new contract guarantees that ABC will broadcast an SEC game each week during the season and will also host the SEC Championship. ESPN+ also has the rights to broadcast one non-conference football game and two non-conference men’s basketball games per SEC school each season of the agreement. The network is now officially adding a soundtrack to its graphics package it unveiled earlier in the year, as it makes final preparations for the official launch of the college football broadcast entity.
“By looking at the past and connecting with the present, ESPN brings a touch of tradition to a new era of televised SEC sports,” Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey said in a statement. “This re-orchestrated lineup will enhance the presentation of SEC football on ABC by bringing some nostalgia to the new SEC Saturday television experience.”
