Happy September! I’ve been waiting for the start of this year’s football season to revisit a post I did back in 2012 on my now defunct NMNPHX blog. As a fan of both (American) football AND music, I thought it would be fun to examine the various instrumental themes that have been produced or adapted by media networks for NFL telecasts.

NOTE: IF you are NOT a fan of American football, but ARE a fan of music- please keep reading! I assure you as a music fan you will like this one.

When I did this post back in 2012, there were 4 theme songs. Fast forward to 2024 and there is a 5th as a few years ago, Amazon Prime snagged the rights to air Thursday Night Football.

Listen to each piece below, then vote for your favorite!

ABC/ESPN- “Heavy Action”:

Heavy Action, composed by Johnny Pearson in the early 1970′s, made it’s first
television debut as the theme song for Superstars, a sports themed showed on the BBC.
By 1978, ABC acquired the rights to develop Superstars in the U.S. The network opted to use Heavy Action to introduce MNF. It wasn’t until 1989 that Heavy Action was proclaimed the official theme of MNF.
When MNF made the move to ESPN in 2006, Heavy Action moved with it. The piece has be rearranged several times over the years, but the first 20 seconds of the piece is perhaps one of the
most recognizable themes in sports

Listen to “Heavy Action”: Heavy Action (youtube.com)

CBS- “Posthumus Zone”

CBS commissioned the group, E.S. Posthumus, composed of classically trained brothers Helmut and Franz
Vonlichten, to come up with a theme for their NFL telecasts. This has been CBS’s football theme since 2003.

Listen to “Posthumus Zone: Posthumus Zone (The Theme To The NFL On CBS) (youtube.com)

NBC- John Williams Composition

NBC’s current instrumental NFL theme music was composed by John Williams in 2006, when NBC
began airing Sunday Night Football.

Listen to NFL on NBC Theme: NFL on NBC Theme (youtube.com)

FOX- NFL on FOX Theme

Composed in 1994, it is more synthetic sounding than the music of the other networks. It begins with a trumpet solo and a piece of the theme sounds very similar to the classic Christmas tune Sleigh Ride.

Listen to NFL on Fox Theme: ‘NFL on FOX’ Theme Song 🔈 (youtube.com)

Amazon Prime

In 2022, Amazon unveiled their Thursday Night Football theme music composed by Pinar Toprak who also composed the music for the movie “Captain Marvel”.

Listen to Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime: Thursday night football on prime video, (official theme) (youtube.com)

Now that you’ve all 5 themes, vote in the poll below or drop your vote into the comments! Also- be sure to click on the word ‘Submit’ under the poll options to record your answer if you use the polling function.