Top 15 Sports Themes Of All Time

Long used by the New York Yankees as the song that accompanies the nine Bombers out to the field at every home game, this song starts slow, builds and erupts. It is also notable for being pro wrestler Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat’s entrance theme for many years.

Corny, cheesy and overall pretty awful. It comes as a package deal for one of the greatest movies that has ever dared to exist, The Karate Kid. Truthfully the movie isn’t all that much better than the song, but it’s an inspirational sports theme that has the ability to get you thinking positively about your abilities.

Lunatic Fringe is an absolutely iconic song from one of the best sports movies of all time, Vision Quest. If you don’t know it, the movie (based on the book of the same name) follows high school wrestler Louden Swain (Matthew Modine) as he struggles trying to cut weight to wrestle the state’s best wrestler, while chasing the incredibly hot Linda Fiorentino.

They have gone through a number of themes over the years, all stemming from the original iteration that just screamed late 80s-early 90s. The most famous and most well-liked is the faster paced version used in the mid-1990s with the signature “duh-duh-duh! duh-duh-duh!”

Queen’s first of two appearances on this list, this rock anthem is about how my team is going to kick your team’s butt and how embarrassed we’ll make you feel.

Probably known to most of the younger generation as “Put Me In Coach” due to the song’s chorus, this is a classic baseball song and lent itself as the theme song to one of the best sports movies of all time, Bull Durham.

How do you do anything but get up, dance your butt off and have fun for the three minutes before the final game of the week? It was never better than the mid-to-late 1990s versions, but this song, and even more so the phrase, is immediately associated with Monday nights all over the world.

The opening note of this song hits the loudspeakers, the wall opens up in the outfield, and out comes one of the most feared and respected closers of all time. It’s been used by other athletes and teams, but there’s nobody that has an association with this song closer than Mariano Rivera. Simply iconic.

Almost the opposite of “We Will Rock You”, this is a slower, more ballad-like song that still ends up kicking your butt. If you don’t feel inspired while listening to this song, you have no soul.

Heavy, heroic and hard-hitting, this piece of music has made people all over the country feel like something epic is about to happen. Then we have to listen to Terry Bradshaw prattle on about nothing in particular while randomly laughing at the jokes in his head or getting angry for reasons that are unexplained.

There isn’t much to say about this song that hasn’t already been said. It’s the freakin’ Rocky theme!

All personal and legal matters aside, RnR Part 2 is a song that is universally recognized as one of the most iconic sports songs of all time. It feels like if you’re not just going wild and getting your uniform dirty while listening to this song, you are just wasting your time.

What else can be said about Eye of the Tiger? It’s not necessarily even a good song. It just happens to be PERFECT for Rocky.

It’s the NBA on NBC theme! It was a very sad day when the NBA and NBC parted ways, and now the only way to relive the magic is on YouTube. Just play it before your team’s game starts on TNT and pretend like it’s the old times.

Simply epic. You only get to hear the song on TV every two years, but when it plays, especially for the first time, it just feels special. All of a sudden you aren’t just watching sports, you’re taking part in an event. I heard that the only reason Bob Costas was able to survive the flight back to the United States when he got so sick was because they played this song on a loop until they landed.