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 By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital Friday, April 5, 2024 - 2:06 pm
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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 r sum 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
