If you consider yourself to be any semblance of a sports fan, you woke up last Thursday and did one of two things: Camped out in front of the TV in a University of (enter some Cinderella team that probably has no shot at coming close to winning the NCAA Tournament here) T-shirt or camped out at your cubicle in front of a live stream of college basketball action on CBSSports.com with your finger on the “Boss Button.” It marked the beginning of March Madness, after all, and that meant 96 hours of solid basketball coverage.
Of course, the good folks at CBS Sports weren’t quite as lucky. Rather than overindulge in 48 helpings of college hoops, they were busy working ’round the clock to create special segments on different teams, coaches and players to air during the network’s pregame show Road To The Final Four. And a major part of that? Picking music that helps define the coverage, which doesn’t sound all that bad at first (slap a highlight here, a Bon Jovi clip there), until you realize that, well, it is. That’s because Harold Bryant, the Vice President of Production for CBS Sports, doesn’t settle for a soundtrack that sounds ripe for the crowd tuning into 60 Minutes on Sunday nights. Rather, he challenges his team of 25 producers and associate producers to hit the March Madness with exactly what they’re looking for—plenty of surprises. The result: Rick Ross’s “Blow” during a feature on the Syracuse University team, Busta Rhymes’s “Conglomerate” during a clip about Memphis Tigers guard Tyreke Evans and segments featuring T.I.’s “What You Know” and Geto Boys’s “Mind Playing Tricks On Me.”
But just five years after the much-talked-about “Nipplegate” rocked CBS’s 2004 telecast of the Super Bowl, it sorta begs the question: How has such a conventional TV network allowed rap music to become so prominent? So we called Bryant, who has worked for CBS Sports since 1997, and asked him how a rap song successfully makes the cut. Here are five ways more rap might land a slot at the Big Dance tonight when Purdue and Connecticut square off in the first game of the third round of the NCAA Tournament (7PM/EST).
1. It captures the madness: “During the 1990s, we used to use a lot of movie trailer type of music—all the latest and hottest songs off the shelf. But as time went on, everybody was using the same stuff, so we started to challenge one another. Today, I challenge all of my producers to use not just trendy music but also stuff out there that’s new and different. Whatever mood we’re trying to get into a piece, my producers have to find music to match it—and there are plenty of times when a rap song does that.”
2. It provides plenty of positive energy: “Lyrics are definitely a concern. There are plenty of producers who come to me and ask, ‘Can I bleep this?’ But if it has words we can’t use or even words that have been changed from the original version, we can’t use the song. 50 Cent was really big for awhile. Everyone wanted to use ‘P.I.M.P.’ and it was just like, ‘No! He’s great but…’ Even the way his first album started with the fifty-cent piece hitting the table. Everyone was like, ‘Oh my God! That’s perfect!’ But we have to think about the intent of a track before we use it.”
3. It appeals to a niche audience: “A lot of our guys want somebody outside of the sports industry to go, ‘Where did they get that?’ or ‘Did they really just use that song?’ There’s definitely a sense of pride here.”
4. It catches the ears of CBS’s producers: “We’ve got 20 to 25 producers and associate producers working with us right now and they range in age from 25 to 50. The hip hop fans are across the board. There are 40-year-olds here who are hip hop fans. So while we still use movie trailer stuff and new songs by U2 and stuff like that, we try and mix it up, too—and all of our producers have a hand in choosing what we play.”
5. It gets sent to CBS by a record label: “Sometimes labels call us up [to use their music]. They know that even if it’s 15 or 20 seconds, they can say it was on CBS Sports. That has increased in the last couple of years. Even up-and-coming artists try and contact our producers.”
home
