The Simpsons Funday Football: ESPN Records Unique Twist on Monday Night Football Theme for Animated Alternative Broadcast The recording, with members of Louisiana Philharmonic, was coordinated through APM Music By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Monday, December 9, 2024 - 2:26 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Monday night's The Simpsons Funday Football alternative broadcast on ESPN will unite two of the most iconic brands in U.S. television history, not only visually but also musically.
ESPN partnered with APM Music to produce a bespoke theme for The Simpsons Funday Football.
Two of the more culturally relevant pieces of music in the TV medium have been blended into a special custom theme. Through a partnership with music-licensing agency APM Music, ESPN recorded a new song for tonight's altcast. It combines the Monday Night Football theme (or as it's known by its more formal name, Heavy Action ) with the main title theme of the biggest animated show in history.
SVG goes behind the scenes in Springfield (and Bristol) with in-depth coverage of every aspect of the production:
TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW: Inside the Tech That ESPN and the NFL Use To Bring Springfield to Life
PRODUCTION OPERATIONS: The Game May Be Set in Springfield, but the Production Team Is in Bristol
CREATIVE PHILOSOPHY: ESPN Creative Studio's Michael Spike' Szykowny Pulls Back the Curtain on Creative Process
TRACKING TECHNOLOGY: Sony's Beyond Sports CEO Sander Shouten Analyzes How Tracking Tech Enables Real-Time Animated Altcasts
MUSIC & THEME SONG: ESPN Records Unique Twist on Monday Night Football Theme for Animated Alternative Broadcast
Creatively, this wasn't a simple mashup. The two pieces of music are significantly different and required an orchestra combining abilities in both classical music and jazz. The pieces are in different keys, they have different tempos, the pacing is different, and they require different-size orchestras, explains Robert Navarro, creative director, APM Music.
The challenge, adds producer Jeff Rona, was to figure out how to bring these two worlds together without its sounding like a complete collision.
To pull it off, ESPN - led by Music Operations Supervisor Joanne Strange and Coordinating Director, Music, Claude Mitchell - and APM Music gathered an orchestra largely made up of members of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra for a recording that took place at Esplanade Studios in New Orleans on Nov. 13.
Heavy Action was composed in 1970 by legendary British composer Johnny Pearson. It might come as a surprise that, although Heavy Action is indelibly linked with Monday Night Football, it was not composed specifically for the NFL property and is, in fact, not owned by ESPN or The Walt Disney Co. It was originally produced for 1970s sports-TV reality competition show Superstars. The rights to the theme are owned by APM Music.
Meanwhile, the theme song for The Simpsons, also referred to as The Simpsons Main Title Theme, was composed in 1989 by another musical icon: American film composer Danny Elfman, whose work lives in entertainment lore on many Tim Burton projects - Edward Scissorhands, Batman, Beetlejuice - as well as A Nightmare Before Christmas, the first two Spider-Man films, Dick Tracy, the first Mission: Impossible, and all the Men in Black films. Even with that r sum , Elfman has called The Simpsons theme his most popular piece of music.
The rise of alternative broadcasts increasingly offers the media and entertainment industry unique opportunities to bring together prominent pieces of intellectual property that would normally never occupy the same space. Already, ESPN alternative broadcasts have united diverse IP: Toy Story with the NFL, the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the NBA, and Disney Channel cartoon Big City Greens with the NHL. In the eyes of APM Music brass, the industry is just scratching the surface for what this might mean for music rights in the future.
We are the keepers of the Heavy Action' flame, says Matthew Gutknecht, VP, sports entertainment, APM Music. The possibilities within the Disney multiverse alone are really exciting. This is not just the ESPN or the NFL calendar anymore; it's also the Disney calendar. I mean, if we can do Star Wars, it would be nuts. It's wild to think of the possibilities.
This is not the first time that ESPN has partnered with APM to re-imagine Heavy Action for Monday Night Football. After helping bring back the theme's original Pearson arrangement to MNF in 2018, APM also helped produce an EDM remix of the song two years ago with Grammy-nominated artist Marshmello.
Most recent headlines
24/12/2025
What is AI good for? Posted by MTI Film on December 24, 2025
What is AI good for?
What is AI good for?
It's been three years since ChatGPT first cap...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Back to All News
Love, Fights, and Everything in Between: Badly in Love' Returns for Season 2
Entertainment
24 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied t...
24/12/2025
Scripps Research study links sleep variability with sleep apnea and hypertension How consumers' digital activity trackers could enable personalized health s...
23/12/2025
How guilas Cibae as Dominican Winter League Games Are Locally Produced for Glob...
23/12/2025
BitFire's Jim Akimchuk on Supplying Scalability and Customization in the Clo...
23/12/2025
CAMB.AI Enables European Athletics to Offer Multi-Language SupportPlan is to eventually offer translation into all languages spoken in EuropeBy Ken Kerschbaumer...
23/12/2025
Analysis: As sports media values trend negative, scarcity and quality are king By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Monday, December 22, 2025 - 14:08
Print ...
23/12/2025
ESPN, Disney, and NBA Return to the Animated Altcast Fray With Second Edition of...
23/12/2025
End the Year on a High Note and Donate to the Sports Broadcasting Fund Today! By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 - 12:25 pm
...
23/12/2025
The year is winding down, the weather outside is frightful, and it's the perfect time to escape into a story that warms the heart. For listeners looking for...
23/12/2025
A Zeus motor is hot fire tested at L3Harris' Camden, Arkansas, solid rocket ...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Lightware will exhibit several major product innovations at ISE 2026, including the new USB-C BOOSTER-V1, Google Meet. integration for various Taurus UCX models...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix's The Great Flood and Culinary Class Wars 2 Top Gl...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things By the Numbers: How the Global Phenomenon Shap...
23/12/2025
Experience the power of WO Automation for Radio's newest service, the System Effectiveness Review. Designed to help you achieve more, a System Effectiveness...
23/12/2025
23 Dec 2025
VEON's Beeline Kazakhstan and Rakuten Symphony Collaborate to A...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
How Steamy Can It Get? Single's Inferno' Season 5 Pre...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
33 Million Global Viewers on Netflix Watched Jake Paul vs. Ant...
23/12/2025
New technique lights up where drugs go in the body, cell by cell Scripps Research scientists developed a technique that maps drug binding in individual cells th...
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
22/12/2025
Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...
22/12/2025
The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...
22/12/2025
Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...
22/12/2025
Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...
The Simpsons Funday Football: ESPN Records Unique Twist on Monday Night Football Theme for Animated Alternative Broadcast The recording, with members of Louisiana Philharmonic, was coordinated through APM Music By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
