There are questions in life and certainly some of them are set in sports, and perhaps none of those is as poignant and as deep as the one you’ll hear in most sports stadia: who let the dogs out? Fifteen years ago, the Baha Men released "Who Let The Dogs Out," a song that would tear up the charts in several countries and become a staple at sporting events the world over.

Ben Reiter wrote about the Baha Men in a "Where Are They Now?" column for Sports Illustrated and he joined Bill Littlefield.

BL: Ben, tell us how the song, which is now almost universally known, was almost lost to obscurity.

BR: Someone went into the office of a record producer named Steve Greenberg. The guy's name was Fat Jakk and his band was called Fat Jakk and his Pack of Pets. He played the song for Steve Greenberg, and he said this was one of the worst songs that he'd ever heard in his whole life. Something about the song's hook, though, stuck with him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qkuu0Lwb5EM

BL: By the way, depending on your musical tastes, Greenberg is either a hero or a villain. He also produced this 1997 Hanson hit, "MMMBop." Anyway, Greenberg got the Baha Men into the studio. They are talented musicians, but they had a problem with one thing at the recording session. What was that?

BR: One of the problems was none of the Baha Men could bark up to Steve Greenberg's specifications. So on the record when you hear the barking, that's Steve Greenberg himself leading the way. Steve Greenberg likes to say that he has produced two of the most despised songs in history between "MMMBop" and "Who Let the Dogs Out."

However, it really goes deeper than that. Steve Greenberg not only has an ear for hits, he has a master's degree from Stanford in Applied Communication Research. Essentially he studied the way by which things become popular. So his training and his ear told him that this song would become popular, as unlikely as it was, and he certainly was right.

BL: When the single was released, Greenberg hired a marketer. Normally that person’s job would be to push radio stations to play the song, obviously, but Greenberg had something else in mind. What was the strategy he employed and how did it work?