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The mission was clear, in close collaboration with the incredible Molecular Sound, to capture the essence, energy and passion of iconic venues and sporting events in the U.K. and Europe and seamlessly incorporate those sounds into brand new music themes to inform and drive the tempo, rhythms and styles for each sport. To create a new sound for TNT that would stand the test of time. Gaining unparalleled access to major sporting events throughout 2023, our teams set out to get as close as they could with a microphone to the build up, matches and most importantly the fans. Sound design recordings included being ringside for Joe Joyce v Zhang Zhilei at the Copperbox arena in London, capturing the emotion of Ben Foster’s last minute penalty save at Wrexham v Notts County at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham and being as close as humanly possible to the final stage of the Tour De France 2023.

The TNT / WBD team were keen to lean into the brand's core value of being “right by the fans” and when it came to the music and sound the creative idea, however challenging, had to encapsulate this too. In essence, the idea was to create a brand new music theme for each of the fourteen TNT Sports Pillar Sports already being broadcast or were due to broadcast in the next three years. Each Pillar Theme needed to be entirely unique yet with a thread of continuity between all. It quickly became clear that music composition and sound design would not need to be mutually exclusive, that it could be beautifully entangled, inextricably linked and part of the same creative process. The teams needed to use sound design to influence music composition and music composition to influence sound design and this is where this projects uniqueness was born.

Musically the composition process across all fourteen pillars stemmed from one "DNA Composition" that was composed first. This gave literal life to all of the other Pillars Sports Themes with melodies, harmonies, rhythms and textures from it being used as the springboard for further development. These musical themes were created hand in hand with the sound design that had been captured, with, for example, in the NBA Theme, the rhythms of a basketball game informing the tempo and the sounds of bouncing basketballs, shoe squeaks on court floors and, what quickly became the benchmark for all of the new TNT themes, the iconic crowd sounds. Having two teams that were already experienced in working within sports broadcast audio creation was an immeasurable aid.

Having the opportunity to record strings at iconic recording studio Abbey Road only added to the power that this project had already. Further to this, the opportunity to record reverb tails at an empty Wembley Stadium which then were brought back to the studio to form part of the ends and transitions for each theme is an experience that is going to be very difficult to replicate again!

With over 300 individual pieces of broadcast-able audio created, curated and delivered to WBD and TNT Sports across 14 sports so far. From three and half minute long looped beds to five second idents, all from the same themes and musical compositions, the scale of what has been achieved is only now being realised. What’s more is these pieces of audio are being used on a daily basis.

The future looks bright too with the foundation laid for TNT Sports merger with Eurosport across mainland Europe, these usage for these audio assets is only going to grow.