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
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
08/09/2026
Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) has announced a multi-year agreement with A E...
08/09/2026
Spectra Logic today announced the availability of Media Insight, a new capabilit...
08/09/2026
Rogers Communications and Quebecor have announced a 12-year sublicensing agreement for French-language national NHL games beginning with the 2026-27 season. TVA...
08/09/2026
Skyline Communications and Bridge Technologies will demonstrate two integrations...
08/09/2026
Boland Communications will make the European debut of its 4K55HDR7SNB 55-inch super-narrow-bezel monitor at IBC2026 (Stand 12.C57, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-1...
08/09/2026
Ateme and Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) have announced a collaboration comb...
08/09/2026
Haivision has joined the IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Programme as part of t...
08/09/2026
Blackmagic Design has announced price reductions on its PYXIS 6K and Cinema Camera 6K models, effective immediately through Blackmagic Design resellers worldwid...
08/09/2026
AI-Media will demonstrate its LEXI Suite at IBC2026 (Booth 5.C34, September 11-1...
08/09/2026
Bitmovin and Ad Insertion Platform (AIP) have announced the first live deploymen...
08/09/2026
Grass Valley will demonstrate story-centric media workflows at IBC2026 (Booth 9.A01, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14), connecting newsroom production, content ma...
08/09/2026
M2A Media and Ateme have announced a partnership integrating Ateme's video processing solutions into M2A Media's MediaToAnywhere platform for live sport...
08/09/2026
Ikegami will exhibit at IBC2026 (Stand 12.A31, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14), including a Day 1 introduction of new cameras in the UNICAM XE series. Additiona...
08/09/2026
Broadcast industry analysts will be gathering plenty of insights at the 2026 IBC Show this weekend in Amsterdam, but Caretta Research has offered up some though...
08/09/2026
SENSHI and DAZN have announced a global broadcast partnership that will bring SENSHI's live events free to viewers in more than 200 markets. The partnership...
08/09/2026
New architecture built with Evertz will bring 4K HDR to Monday Night Football, N...
08/09/2026
Built for rap producers, by rap producers
Sauceware Audio, the independent plug-in company founded by Grammy-nominated producer Jacob (Travis Scott, 21 Sava...
08/09/2026
Classic Sound Techniques design revived
Warm Audio's latest release delivers a meticulous recreation of the preamp circuitry employed by the Sound Techn...
08/09/2026
Latest soft synth inspired by the Memorymoog
XILS Lab have just launched a software instrument that draws its inspiration from Moog's iconic Memorymoog,...
08/09/2026
The Airport Chaplain takes off as SBS's biggest launch of 2026
8 September, 2026
Media releases
1.67 million viewers on National Total TV to date
Best...
08/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/09/2026
Mo-Sys, the world-leading developer of virtual production, camera robotics and image tracking technology, has completed a business restructuring, which has incl...
08/09/2026
New York, September 8, 2026 The TSAmediaHUB audiovisual contribution and distribution infrastructure developed by Telef nica's Audiovisual Services area re...
08/09/2026
Expanded Riyadh operation brings Asharq and Thmanyah services together on a resilient on-premises Pebble platform.
Pebble, the leading automation, content mana...
08/09/2026
Techex, a pioneering leader in live video workflows, will showcase its broadest software feature set to date at IBC 2026 (Stand 2.B45), extending its lead in so...
08/09/2026
Visitors to Grass Valley's booth at IBC2026 will be introduced to new Framelight X capabilities that connect content acquisition, management, editing and pu...
08/09/2026
BCNEXXT will showcase the latest evolution of Vipe at IBC2026 (Stand 2.B09), introducing a series of innovations designed to deliver higher-quality audience exp...
08/09/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Ad Insertion Platform (AIP), a leading innovator in advanced ad insertion technologies, to...
08/09/2026
Brainstorm, a leading manufacturer of real-time graphics and augmented and virtual production, is announcing a major package of enhancements to its Suite 7 soft...
08/09/2026
Big Blue Marble is supporting TDF, French infrastructure and network operator, broadcasting Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and radio services, as a techno...
08/09/2026
Agents work inside a single production environment, from incoming wire copy to a live studio show...
08/09/2026
Building on their strategic partnership, Ceeblue and Layercake make the unthinkable possible: scalable sub-second streaming over standard DRM, SSAI, and CDN wor...
08/09/2026
Brainstorm, a leading manufacturer of real-time graphics, augmented and virtual production, is completing the environment for fast-paced broadcast production wi...
08/09/2026
A SaaS portfolio built to work together, helping operators grow audiences, monetise smarter and run leaner, on their own terms
At IBC 2026 (stand 1.B49) Synam...
08/09/2026
Accedo, global provider of video streaming software and services, has been selected by PlayOn Sports, a national leader in high school sports technology, to exp...
08/09/2026
LiveU, the leader in live IP-video solutions, is enabling The Associated Press to take global newsgathering to the next stage with intelligent connectivity and ...
08/09/2026
Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitably connect the right content to the right audience, today announced the latest evolution of it...
08/09/2026
Compact, power-efficient X Platform performance brings broadcast-grade reliability and ultra-low latency to space-constrained remote production (REMI) workflows...
08/09/2026
Zixi, the leader in live video delivery and workflow orchestration, and Kiloview, a leading provider of professional IP video encoding and decoding solutions, t...
08/09/2026
Collaboration gives content owners scalable CDN capacity and broadcasters enhanced flexibility, including for C-band transition planning
Quortex today announce...
08/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/09/2026
Telos Alliance and Pluxbox Announce Dynamic Media Facility Integration Partnersh...
08/09/2026
J nger Audio Showcases Industry-First S-ADM Cloud Workflow at IBC 2026
Search
Dolby, MainConcept, Techex and J nger Audio will showcase the industry's ...
08/09/2026
Tuesday 8 September 2026
Sky Go gets a major upgrade for Sky Glass and Sky Stream customers
Today, Sky launches a new version of the Sky Go app for Sky Glass ...
08/09/2026
Documentary thriller simulating a Russian attack on UK soil will culminate in a live final episode reuniting the playersTuesday 8 September 2026
Trailer releas...
08/09/2026
Tuesday 8 September 2026
Jamie Demetriou and Amelia Dimoldenberg to host next t...
08/09/2026
Wuppertal September 8, 2026
Riedel Introduces New OnAir Headset PlatformRiedel Communications today announced the launch of its new OnAir headset platform, a...
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 
