[Details on the Versus 2008 Tour de France theme song, Paul Weller’s “Brand New Start,” here. Details on 2010’s featured song, “Kings and Queens,” by 30 Seconds to Mars, here.]
Last year, Versus featured a song about “getting clean” for its Tour de France coverage. It was part of the network’s attempt, along with its embrace of clean-cycling missionaries Garmin-Chipotle, to position itself as a leader of the clean cycling movment (though perhaps ironically the ratings were better in the dirty-cycling years).
For 2009, Versus doesn’t have a Tour theme. But it does have a nice two-minute ad it’s playing that highlights some of the sports and events the network covers: pro cycling, bull riding, cage fighting, Formula 1 racing, killing large animals, and pro ice hockey among others. The ad features a voiceover by John Doman. If the name’s not familiar, think Rawls, the hard-bitten, cynical (and gay) deputy police chief in “The Wire.”
The music in the ad is an ethereal, ringing instrumental called “First Breath After Coma,” by a band Thom introduced me to a few years ago, Explosions in the Sky.
Here’s the YouTube version of the ad: