Picking the Music: The A1 Gets To Play DJ Sports broadcasts give lead mixers leeway to express their inner A&R By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Wednesday, December 4, 2024 - 7:00 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Sugar Magnolia by the Grateful Dead is an oft-heard choice as the ballgame slides from the end of an inning or a quarter to commercial break. An upbeat track that suggests more joy to come, it's also a regular pick by an A1 corps with a particular affinity for jam bands like the Dead and Phish. That track and dozens of others are on pre-approved lists managed by the broadcasters' music and clearance departments, who ready music dedicated to an upcoming broadcast, an effort intended to keep any uncleared music played in the venues off the air to avoid infringements. Often, the specific songs are chosen by A1s, some of whom came to broadcast after careers in music production or performing.
Jam Banders Although A1s know how to mix a song in the studio, they have been feeling out how music works for sports shows.
I've been playing jam bands since, like, 1991, says A1 Joe Carpenter, who mixes FOX Sports' MLB broadcasts. I've been playing the Grateful Dead and Phish for the past four or five years.
Sugar Magnolia is a favorite of many self-described Dead-Head A1s.
He notes that the genre's typical extended instrumental passages in songs is easier for announcers to talk over but acknowledges feeling a push for more-contemporary music in recent years. He adds that he has plenty of options in broadcaster-cleared choices, pulled from Sigma Broadcast's Spot On software, which offers the option for a sanitized version that won't incur additional use payments at re-air.
It's very situational, Carpenter explains. You want something that works situationally with the music and the title and what's happening on the screen - like sometimes a slo-mo replay - as we roll out to commercial.
Music choices that A1s make constitute a series of running observational puns, such as when A1 Florian Brown cues up the Rolling Stones' (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction after a penalty call during an NHL game.
The production and the music departments pick artists and music profiles for each league and show, he explains. From that bag, the A1 usually tries to match a song to a particular situation. The process for choosing and clearing music takes months and involves lots of [legal layers]. But sometimes people just pay the fine if it re-airs later. It can get expensive.
Carpenter concurs, acknowledging that, when mixing a game, the A1 can serve as program director, DJ, and paralegal. Until about 2005 or so, I would just free-wheel it and play whatever I wanted off my laptop. My producers all trusted me, and I would play whatever I wanted.
Broadcaster Music Teams Monitor Legal Issues Then came the Arcade Fire incident. The Canadian band's No Cars Go track aired in a post-halftime montage during FOX Sports' coverage of Super Bowl XLII in 2008 without, the band alleged, its permission. That spurred increased control over the process.
Now the music department is really, really [careful] about music and getting rights cleared, understandably so, says Carpenter, once a regular in the tapers section of the audience at Grateful Dead shows, where recording the shows was permitted and even encouraged by the band.
He works with FOX Sports colleagues, including FOX Sports Senior VP, Production and Talent Development, Jacob Ullman and Producer Jake Jolivette, both of whom are described by Billboard as fellow FOX Sports Deadheads who work on the broadcaster's MLB productions. FOX Sports VP, Music, Nicole de la Torriente-Nelson leads negotiations with publishers and labels, and Associate Director Yvonne Wagoner prepares approved playlists for broadcast teams. ESPN Music Operations Supervisor Joanne Strange leads the group responsible for all the music on that broadcaster's NFL and college-football shows.
Still Keeping It Loose It's not quite 1970s, West Texas, late-night DJs pulling deep cuts from a crate of cool LPs. Nonetheless, A1s continue to have considerable latitude on music choices within a game, although the assortments are narrower and more intensely pre-cleared by broadcaster music supervisors. Playlists are also sometimes limited by sport and genre.
Generally speaking, explains Dan Buddha Bernstein, senior A1, NHL and NFL, ESPN, we'll have a pool of theme and highlight cuts that are good for a particular sport, to use freely throughout the events, and a few commercial cuts' [for going into breaks] that [the broadcaster has] arranged to use for a certain length of time. Some sports, like the NFL on ESPN, tend to have a number of commercial cuts available throughout the season; other sports may be more [restricted] in terms of spending on music. [But] within that framework, the choice of what to play at any given time during the broadcast is usually mine.
It's not just personal taste but also keeping an ear tuned to what the audience has been listening to ahead of the show, seeking continuity. Says Bernstein, I'll try to use theme music to establish what show people have tuned into early on in a broadcast and a few more times over the course of the show to maintain that connection. The rest of the time, I'll try to play music that matches the energy of the situation.
That could be a lyrical connection: for instance, playing Hold the Line by Toto after a big defensive stand in a Monday Night Football game. Sometimes it's instrumental music to provide a smooth musical bed under announcers' patter, such as an instrumental version of Joker and the Thief by Wolfmother, which he recently dropped during a series of goal replays in an NHL broadcast. In all case
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
27/11/2025
LONDON Vizrt has added several AI-driven advanced features offering improved speed, intelligence and accuracy in the newest version of its media asset managemen...
27/11/2025
Prime Video has launched AI-powered video season recaps in a beta version for select English-language Prime Original series in the U.S., a move Amazon is callin...
27/11/2025
27 Nov 2025
GSMA brings M360 Eurasia 2026 to Samarkand in partnership with VEON...
27/11/2025
Tahar Rahim and Izuka Hoyle star in the gripping six-part Sky Original from Acad...
27/11/2025
Thursday 27 November 2025
Sky Arts Reveals the Nation's Greatest Basslines - and Queen Reign Supreme
The UK's most iconic basslines have been revealed...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things 5': Prepare for One Last Adventure With O...
27/11/2025
The media industry has a paradox at its core. It's an industry built on light, color and imagination, yet behind the scenes, it's powered by one of the ...
27/11/2025
Rating reflects rating progress across areas including policies, diversity & inclusion, health & safety and Net Zero leadership
Winchester, UK, 27 November 202...
27/11/2025
What are the industry standards for Retail Media? Kathryn explains that certification is based on the IAB Europe Retail Media Measurement Standards and the IAB ...
27/11/2025
World champion boxer and Irish sporting icon Katie Taylor will be in studio this...
27/11/2025
Roblox, one of the world's most popular online gaming platforms for primary ...
27/11/2025
Black Friday is leveling up. Get ready to score one of the biggest deals of the season - 50% off the first three months of a new GeForce NOW Ultimate membership...
26/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Prime Video EP Mike Muriano Previews Massive Black Friday Slate Fe...
26/11/2025
A cinematic snow sculpture at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. Photo by Randall Michelson...
26/11/2025
Book podcasts are booming. On Spotify, you'll find everything from celebrity book clubs to deep dives with bestselling authors. And in markets where audiobo...
26/11/2025
Mumbai, November 24, 2025: In a first-of-its-kind initiative, JioStar, in collab...
26/11/2025
LONDON Factual content producer ITN Productions has launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins....
26/11/2025
MIAMI TelevisaUnivision said it struck a new multiyear distribution agreement with YouTube TV that includes distribution of TelevisaUnivision's U.S. network...
26/11/2025
OpenDrives, Inc., a leader in software-defined data storage and data services, today announced the launch of the Atlas Corporate Creative Solution. This new Atl...
26/11/2025
Disguise, the industry-leading company powering the world's biggest live performances, is partnering with pioneering LED wall manufacturer DVS to give atten...
26/11/2025
HighField AI, the pioneer in agentic and multimodal automation for broadcast and media production, today announced the expansion of its global channel partner n...
26/11/2025
As high-stakes Premier League fixtures approach and additional premium content launches, with MONO positioning themselves to dominate Thailand's sports stre...
26/11/2025
Hosting a wide variety of events from high-intensity NHL games to complex live music concerts and major entertainment productions, Montreal's 21,000 capacit...
26/11/2025
Vizrt, the leader in live production technology revolutionizing viewer engagement and experience, releases AI-driven advances focusing on speed, intelligence, a...
26/11/2025
ITN Productions, an award-winning factual content producer, today launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins. Responsible for delivering a leading...
26/11/2025
Ikegami reports ongoing advances throughout 2025 in developing and delivering coordinated television production solutions that maximize quality, versatility and...
26/11/2025
Following the Nov. 21 blackout of NBCUniversal channels on Fubo, the two sides have traded barbs about their inability to reach a new carriage deal....
26/11/2025
LONDON As TV sports rights become increasingly important for both broadcasters and streamers, Ampere Analysis predicts global investment in the genre will surpa...
26/11/2025
LOS ANGELES Vubiquity said it has achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Media & Entertainment Competency as part of the AWS Partner Network (APN). This designa...
26/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau said it has entered into a consent decree with Comcast calling for the cable company t...
26/11/2025
Berklee Named to the Hollywood Reporters Top Music Schools List The publication highlights the college's screen scoring program, industry partnerships, and ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
Animated Series Love Through a Prism' Casts New Light on ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
NALIP Unveils Fifth Cohort of Director Incubator
Social Impact
26 November 2025
United States
Link copied to clipboard
The National Assoc...
26/11/2025
YouView Achieves Greenly Gold Certification for SustainabilityNov 26, 2025
YouView is proud to announce a Gold Certification award from Greenly for our perform...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Deepens Partnership with Taiwan's 62nd Golden Hors...
25/11/2025
Tracy Bonareri Onchoke, an investigative journalist from Kenya is the winner of the Thomson Foundation's Young Journalist Award 2025.
The 26-year-old-sele...
25/11/2025
SVG All-Stars: Blayke Scheer, Senior Director, Creative Content, YES NetworkThe Indiana alum has turned storytelling into an artform for more than two decadesBy...
25/11/2025
Op-Ed: With FCC's C-Band Auction on the Horizon, Broadcasters Need Proven, C...
25/11/2025
Analysis: Is Baller League really the future of sport? By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, November 25, 2025 - 10:10
Print This Story
With KSI on...
25/11/2025
Platinum Whitepaper: The Growth of Broadcast in the World of Major Large Scale E...
25/11/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: SVG Women's Sports WorkshopBy Samantha Gabay
Tuesday, November 25, 2025 - 10:27 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlig...
25/11/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: CacheFly's Matt Levine on the Evolving Role of th...
25/11/2025
Peacock's EA SPORTS Madden NFL Cast Levels Up on Thanksgiving With SkyCam as...
25/11/2025
Mathias Broe attends the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Sauna at Library Center Theatre. (Photo by Michael Hurcomb/Shutterstock for Sundance Film Fes...
25/11/2025
The best playlists, podcasts, and audiobooks bring a little extra magic to your daily routine. With new features and offerings, Spotify Premium delivers even mo...
25/11/2025
Comprehensive new research confirms what we already knew: Australian music fans love the quality, quantity, and access they have to new and local music on strea...
25/11/2025
Applicable Products
Objectives The purpose of this application note is to give a brief background on 5G (NR) wireless communication an explain the reason a SN...
25/11/2025
Nielsen will now measure both Lionsgate's FAST channel MovieSphere and Movie...
Picking the Music: The A1 Gets To Play DJ Sports broadcasts give lead mixers leeway to express their inner A&R By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
