NHL announces 2-year anthem partnership with Green Day
No one would blame you if you haven’t thought about Billie Joe Armstrong in a while, but he might become the next voice of hockey.
Yes, we’ll run that sentence back. The NHL announced a two-year anthem partnership with Green Day, which includes using the band’s song “Ready, Fire, Aim” on NBC Sports’s “Wednesday Night Hockey”, while other songs from their upcoming album will be featured on the broadcast throughout the season.
Green Day will also play at the 2020 NHL All-Star Game.
“That I think will probably be the evolution,” NHL chief content officer and executive Vice President Steve Mayer said to Stephen Whyno of The Associated Press. “If you look at our season and how many times this thing is going to be on, it’ll become an anthem. The song, we’re using slap shots, it’s about scoring and speed — “Fire, Ready, Aim” — I think people will start associating this.”
The anthem partnership is ostensibly positioned to replicate the theme songs of Sunday and Monday Night Football, which have been long-standing staples of the broadcast. The problem here is the execution.
“We’re going to try some bold thing,” Mayer said. “The performance that we’re talking about at All-Star will be epic.”
Hiring one of the hottest bands of 1994 - and of 2004, if we’re being fair to Green Day’s resurgent album “American Idiot” - is by no means, a bold move. New Jersey Devils rookie Jack Hughes was three years old when the album dropped. Unless Green Day has a shockingly good third act upcoming, this appears to be another gaff by the league in adjudging the scope of pop culture.
Green Day’s new album is scheduled to release in February 2020. Until then, this partnership appears headed to the boulevard of broken dreams, and on the last day of month, please wake us all up when September ends.
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