DALLAS — If you're a Dallas Stars fan, you know the 2024-2025 NHL season is just around the corner.
And with any new season, fans can expect changes -- whether it's new players, new uniforms or even new management. But for the Dallas Stars, this season means a new look broadcast-wise as the organization recently announced its partnership with VICTORY+, a streaming platform that will allow Stars fans to watch local games for free.
To launch the new streaming platform, VICTORY+ and the Stars had to ensure they created something memorable, exciting and easy to follow for fans. A major component to this equation is having a quality theme song to accompany it as just about every seasoned sports fan can pinpoint their favorite one, whether it's for Sunday Night Football, NBA on TNT or The Masters.
To create this memorable, exciting piece, VICTORY+ got help from composer Brad Dale and lead sound designer Rene Coronado at Dallas Audio Post. Both Dale and Coronado have extensive backgrounds in creating soundtracks for sports networks, movies and video games. So, when VICTORY+ reached out, they took the opportunity head-on.
"We have a lot of conversations about what we want, what we don't want, what the network wants, what the teams want," Dale explained. "One of the creative terms that kept coming up in creative meetings was disruption."
Dale elaborated on how the Stars were breaking the regional sports network model by partnering with VICTORY+ and they wanted to encapsulate that into a song. And because the Stars are taking such a risk in this bold broadcasting move, the two felt they could also take some risks and avoid making the song sound "safe."
To do this, Dale and Coronado said they made sure to include some traditional elements while implementing things like a big brass hook that travels through various permutations that reflect the story being told during the broadcast of a game.
"We did want it to be memorable," Dale said about their creative process. "Simple, bold things -- something that young folks are gonna really just kind of tap into and be close to home for them, for the kind of the things that they're familiar with and the music they're listening to. So, you do have big traditional brass hits, but you also have a big 808 base."
Check out the theme song here:
Dale explained how they wrote it as a big trap beat with Southern roots made obvious through hip-hop elements, which they felt represented Dallas and the style of music present in the area.
"This is where you wanted a big thing that the average person that's not musically trained could hum down the street," Coronado said. "You want the fans to be able to hear the song and have it be go time and be able to know it inside and out."
The two shared their excitement about the future of VICTORY+ and what it could mean for the industry, but also how it could carry out pieces of music like the one they created.
To compare, Dale and Coronado referenced the group that created ESPN's Sports Center theme song and how they must have felt when they first launched. To carry that sound for many years is something they hope will be the reality for this piece which they have dubbed, "The Conquest."
"We want this to be a sports network theme, but we also want it to go hard," Coronado explained. "We want it to be hype."
