ESPN is a fairly hip network.
Their on-air talent make an effort to stay current with their slang and with tons of production staff still in their 20s, its no wonder you hear so much new music on The Worldwide Leader in Sports.
Kind of like long snappers, music beds on TV are generally unnoticed unless something’s wrong or off but ESPN’s fondness for Jay-Z’s 11th #1 album, Blueprint 3, is an epidemic.
Sure I’d love to hear an “on to the next one” reference after an Adrian Peterson stiff arm but since the day it’s dropped, there’s no doubt people who don’t even like Jay-Z or own the album, know every freakin’ song.
It started with “Run This Town” and understandably so. It’s a hot track about your squad “running” another, ESPN covers team sports, makes sense. But I got it the first time, you don’t have to put it behind every highlight, Monday Night Football, college volleyball, Major League Baseball. You’re killing me smalls.
Then “Star Is Born” became the PA’s favorite. Again. Not a bad choice once or twice and I’m all for North Carolina hip-hop getting some shine (Fayetteville native, J Cole, is featured on the track) but after hearing it a few times during College Football you get it, he went from being some high school kid to a star. We get it.
The most frequent offender of using BP3 every, single day has to be one of ESPN’s newer shows, SportsNation.
This show prides itself on being the fans voice on the network and as a fan I’m begging them to buy a new album.
They have literally played songs from BP3 that won’t even be singles, at the end of their broadcasts the credits just say, all music from Jay-Z’s Blueprint 3. Simple enough I guess, why pay to play more tracks. Why confuse the new guy with multiple audio tracks when he can just hit next one more time?
Fuck that.
If I hear “So Ambitious” again leading into a commercial break, I might seriously consider parental locking myself out of ESPN2 (and I love FirstTake).
You’re owned by Disney for God’s sake, it’s not like you don’t have the money? Is the label paying you to play the album everyday on-air, on all your shows nearly two months after its release? If so, not knocking the Roc Nation hustle, just urging you to send them some new shit.
This article appears in Oct 27 – Nov 2, 2009.
I notice Kiss on ESPN more than Jay-Z.
the sad thing is its almost three months later and their still doing it.
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