Skip to main content

ESPN Taps Drake To Bring the Flow To Select Monday Night Football Games

Drake performing on "The Come Up Show" during the Summer Sixteen Tour in 2016.
Drake performing on “The Come Up Show” during the Summer Sixteen Tour in 2016.

It’s been quite the beginning of September for superstar musician Drake. After the Sept. 3 release of his sixth album, Certified Lover Boy, ESPN announced that it will work alongside Billboard’s Artist of the Decade throughout the entire NFL season to curate music for select Monday Night Football games. 

Before it was even released, NBA stars like LeBron James and Kevin Durant were dropping tweets and Instagram Stories in anticipation of the album. While Drake has been known more for his NBA fandom (as a Toronto Raptors ambassador), he’s now spreading the sports love to a new league. Now that Certified Lover Boy is already a massive hit, it’s no surprise the NFL is seeking to capitalize on that popularity. 

Related Videos

“Now we are here … the kickoff of the football season. And who better to curate music for Monday Night Football than Drake who sits firmly at the intersection of music and sports,” ESPN vice president of sport marketing Emeka Ofodile said in a press release. 

Related Guides

For 37 years, no artist had ever bested Michael Jackson’s Billboard Hot 100 record of seven top 10 hits stacked up from 1982’s “Thriller.” And for 57 years, no music artist ever touched The Beatles’ 1964 Hot 100 apex as the one and only act to occupy all top five charting songs in one week — until now.  

As of Sept. 18’s charts, Drake knocked out the King of Pop, inscribing his mark on the music history books when Certified Lover Boy launched with nine of Billboard’s top 10 tracks, breaking Jackson’s record and tying the Fab Four’s with hits on each of the Billboard Hot 100’s top five positions. (Coincidentally, Drake samples The Beatles’ Michelle on the album’s opening track, Champagne Poetry.) According to MRC Data music sales figures, the album moved 613,000 albums this week, easily 2021’s best first week.

In an announcement two weeks ago, ESPN said that the sports station plans to collaborate with Drake to choose music that encapsulates “both the energy and mood of select Monday Night Games.” The soundtrack will be a combination of Drake classics, recent releases, and music from other artists. Songs will run during Monday Night Football promotional spots, live telecasts, and pregame shows for ten games this season, beginning this week.

“The music curator role has been a big hit with our fans with Diplo and DJ Khaled in previous years and this season, we will be living inside the moment with Drake,” Ofodile said. 

Read More: How to Get 360 Waves Hairstyle at Home

Editors' Recommendations

The 11 best podcasts for long road trips in 2023
Make your drive better with these great podcasts for road trips

Spring is nearly here, which means it's time to start thinking about the great American road trip. Whether you're planning to venture from coast to coast or just a few towns over, you're going to want some quality content to listen to. Enter the podcast, the road trip's best friend.

This is not to say you shouldn't embrace the sounds of the road. Nor should you avoid your fellow passengers or overlook that special quiet you get when you're driving an empty road during the wee hours. But at some point along the way, you might want a little sonic pick me up. That's where the road trip podcast really comes in handy, an audio copilot that will keep your brain running while the odometer ticks away.

Read more
SlingTV just made it easier to keep up with every March Madness game in real-time, anywhere you go
Sling TV debuts two new features that will make March Madness even better
how to watch march madness anywhere sports scores

 

For many people, spring means a vacation from school or work. It could signal the flowers are ready to bloom and the barbecue is about to exit the garage and settle in on the back porch. And for basketball fans, spring is the best time of the year! March and April are two of the busiest months to watch college basketball as the NCAA Tournament kicks off. May and June mean the NBA Playoffs will begin to determine the champion of the league.

Read more
This interesting guide shows bullets before and after impact
How different types of bullets look after impact and why that matters
Close-up of a bunch of bullets on a table

If you're not a "gun person," per se, or even if you are, you probably know that not all bullets are designed the same way. What you might not know, however, is just how different they can actually be. Over on the CoolGuides subreddit, user BallisticImpressions recently created a viral photo that perfectly illustrates the point, and it's way more interesting than you might expect.

How different types of bullets look before and after impact BallisticImpressions

Read more