Opening weekends of the college football and pro football seasons are right around the corner. It’s time to take a step back from the business of sports and celebrate this moment. Over the last decade, football has become the premier American sport. Sundays are made for the NFL they say. Saturdays are for college football. Then there’s the Thursday night and Friday Night games too. Four nights of football a week? Sounds good to us.

There are certain passion points that draw fans to the game of football. One of the largest passion points for football, as well as with all sports, are words, colors, and sounds that associate the brain of the fan with their favorite team or sport. That’s why you’ll never see an Ohio State fan wearing Maize and Blue.

From a media perspective, television stations have successfully touched the music passion points with fans, associating certain themes with certain sports on a specific station.

Just for fun, and as a tribute to the kickoff of the 2009 football season, here are The Sports Business Exchange’s Editor-in-Chief’s choices as the top 5 best network theme songs across all sports. Not surprisingly, three of the top themes are for football.

The Best of the Best:
1. NBA on NBC – Kudos to John Tesh. Roundball Rock might be the most recognizable sports theme song of all time but comes in at number 3 only because of longevity. Roundball Rock and Michael Jordan defined the NBA in the 1990s.

2. Monday Night Football – Are you ready for some football? How can you not be when you you hear this song?

3. CBS: NCAA Basketball – It only makes sense that the greatest postseason tournament has one of the greatest theme songs to go with it. Even though it’s not the theme song, bonus points are being award for One Shining Moment.

4a. FOX: NFL Football – If any football fan hears this song, they immediately stop what they are doing and search for the nearest television to find out what’s happening in the NFC.

4b. CBS: NFL Football – It’s hard to seperate the two theme songs out. If your favorite team plays in the AFC, you probably like the CBS theme song better. If your favorite team plays in the NFC, FOX gets the nod.

5. CBC: Hockey Night in Canada – Tip of the hat to our neighbors to the north. While Hockey Night in Canada might be more foreign to American sports fans than Rugby, Canadians would argue that it is the only sports theme song.

Agree or Disagree? What other themes belong on this list? Please leave your comments below.