Going for it on fourth-down? Cue the brass section. Missed field goal? Violins, please. Fumble! Cymbals!
Fox is actually considering adding a sound track to its NFL football game coverage after testing the idea by adding snippets of music to its coverage of Seattle-San Francisco on Sunday. Says Fox spokesman Dan Bell: "It's in the experimental stage. But yes, we'd consider doing it again."
Don't laugh. Lots of sports movies — not to mention all those NFL Films shows whose highlights are backed up with heroic scores — make use of music. Actual stadiums, in various sports, go crazy with background music but TV would have a big advantage: Unlike stadiums that have to cut off the tunes just before the action, TV networks could let its melody build to a crescendo as plays unfold.
Given how grating and disruptive this "addition" would be to viewers' game-watching experience, one might conclude that the network wouldn't dare to actually implement this grotesque experiment with any regularity. Maybe so, but consider this: These are the same people who've subjected America's sports fans to dancing robots, glow puck, and Tim McCarver over the years. Anything is possible, my friends.
UPDATE - Just how intrusive and obnoxious is this concept in practice? From last week's guinea pig broadcast: