The Music Behind NBC’s Sochi Olympic Promos – the Greatest Sports Theme No One Can Name

Since the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, NBC has used a peculiar piece of music to back their Olympic teaser commercial and promo spots. While the majority of Olympic viewers recognize the title music featured on NBC’s Olympic coverage as John Williams’ Olympic Fanfare and Theme, many have wondered what the inspirational and nationalistic music during the teaser spots for the following day’s Olympic coverage that appear nightly for the past 18 years.

It wasn’t until the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver and to the credit of sleuthing Reddit/Youtube members that the piece was finally discovered:

Much to the shock of sports and score fans everywhere, the music was not an original piece made by John Williams or even originally commissioned for NBC’s Olympics coverage at all. The theme music surprisingly originated from the long forgotten and fairly unknown 1993 television series The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.

While short-lived and lasting one season on television, the theme song for the Fox TV series’ The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. (which starred geek-culture icon Bruce Campbell) lives on in the hearts of sports fanatics everywhere. Created by American composer Randy Edelman, NBC purchased the rights to the music in 1996 and have subsequently used it as their Olympic teaser theme ever since.

But NBC has also used it as part of their other sports coverage, notably during their coverage of the MLB playoffs from 1996 through 1998. While barely clocking in at a minute-long, NBC generally loops the theme for however long they need a spot to be. In the case in some of their credit packages, its been looped as long as 7 minutes!

Despite its originally intended use for a western television series, its now widely recognized as to diehard sports fans as the greatest sports theme no one can name.

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