Heavy Action

"Heavy Action" is a piece of music composed by Johnny Pearson. Composed in 1970, and featuring a strong brass fanfare opening, "Heavy Action" soon became a well established sporting theme tune, most associated in the United Kingdom as the theme for "Superstars" and in the United States of America as the theme music for ABC and ESPN's "Monday Night Football".
"Superstars".
The BBC commissioned Pearson to write the piece for its music library, while he was working as a member of the "Top of the Pops" orchestra accompanying pop stars on the weekly music TV show. During production of the first series of "Superstars" in 1973, "Heavy Action" was chosen as the theme music, owing to its high energy brass fanfare opening and Olympian themes. The show (which aired in its first run from 1973 to 1985 and has been revived regularly since then) has always used the theme tune for all episodes of the show in its various incarnations, including the latest 2012 Olympic "Superstars" edition. The theme is now synonymous with sport in the United Kingdom, and was used extensively by the BBC during their coverage of the 2012 Summer Olympics.
"Monday Night Football".
In 1975 NFL season, ABC, who had developed the original "Superstars" show in the US, acquired the rights to use "Heavy Action" as the opening theme music to "Monday Night Football", although it would not become the official theme until 1989 NFL season. It was also used as the background music during a halftime segment as Howard Cosell narrated highlights of the previous Sunday's games. In 1989, Edd Kalehoff arranged an entirely new recording of "Heavy Action" for the final years of "Monday Night Football" on ABC.
In 2006 NFL season, a team of composers comprising Robert Anthony Navarro, Cris Velasco, Sven Spieker, Sascha Dikiciyan and Chris Rickwood were hired by APM Music (APM) to arrange yet another entirely new recording of "Heavy Action" for the rebirth of "Monday Night Football" on ESPN.
In 2010 NFL season, Cris Velasco, Robert Anthony Navarro, Rod Abernathy, and Joachim Svare were hired by APM to do several arrangements of "Heavy Action" in various musical styles including rock, hip-hop and holiday for "Monday Night Football" on ESPN.
In 2018 NFL season, ESPN brought back the original Pearson arrangement of "Heavy Action" as the main theme for "Monday Night Football".