A link to Doug's chat will be coming soon.

​We’re all passing around as much good cheer as possible during the COVID-19 crisis, and my favorite so far has been the Berklee School of Music’s version of “What the World Needs Now.” The minute I heard this stellar virtual orchestration of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s 1965 hit, I recalled that ABC Sports used this song in their pre-Olympic telecast for the 1972 Summer Games in Munich, West Germany.

As recounted by Doug Wilson in his memoir The World Was Our Stage: ​

Jim McKay, the iconic host of ABC’s Wide World of Sports and Olympic telecasts, aptly referred to the Olympic Games as a town meeting of the world. The ABC Sports team had been preparing for this telecast for years, and as our plane approached Munich, I thought about the first time I had flown in to the city. It was eight years earlier on my way to the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck. The man sitting next to me, who had fought in World War II, reminded me that the Munich airfield was once the site of Luftwaffe Headquarters. Now I was landing at their headquarters! I looked at the buildings through the eyes of my boyhood. Pockmarks still etched the walls from Allied shelling, and as I entered the terminal, my fellow passenger remarked that the last time he had entered the space, ammunition crates were packed from floor to ceiling. I truly felt scared.

The first German I encountered was a customs officer in a dark gray uniform with a high-brimmed military-style cap. He looked like a Gestapo officer. Then I spotted a sign that said “Trink Coca Cola,” and the sight of that American trademark relaxed me a little and reminded me it was 1964, not 1945.

In 1972, much of Europe still had a militaristic, post-war feel to it. The Iron Curtain was still standing strong, and it would be another seventeen years before the Berlin Wall would fall. The memories of Nazi Germany still lingered. The West Germans, who landed on the free side of divided, post-war Germany, were keenly aware of this sensitivity. They wanted to set a tone completely opposite of the very militaristic one set in 1936, when Chancellor Adolph Hitler used the Berlin Summer Games as a world stage to showcase the supremacy of his “Master Race.”

The Munich Games Take a Tragic Turn

We all know the tragedy that unfolded during the second week of the Games, when eleven members of the Israeli team were taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists and killed in what became known as the Munich Massacre. Then, as now, what the world needs now, is love sweet love.

Read more about the Munich Games and producer/director Doug Wilson’s 50-year career with ABC Sports in his book, The World Was Our Stage: Spanning the Glob with ABC Sports. ​#Sportsbooks #whattheworldneedsnow

Watch Doug Wilson's induction into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame, with testimonials by Terry Gannon, Lesley Visser, Sean McManus and Curt Gowdy, Jr., along with clips from  ABC's Wide World of Sports and Olympics telecasts. Congratulations, Doug! Your 50-year career helped define the tradition, innovation and excellence behind the iconic ABC Blazer! 

Doug's segment begins at 2:33:50 

Doug Wilson will be inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in a ceremony to be held on December 17, 2019 at the New York Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan.

In his 50 years with ABC Sports, Doug produced and directed programming for ABC's Wide World of Sports and the network's telecast of 10 Olympic Games, which set the standard for sports broadcasting. Doug is most noted for his innovative work in figure skating and gymnastics, for which he received 17 Emmy Awards.

Doug joins an elite class of legendary professionals who have made an indelible mark on sports television. Congratulations, Doug!

www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org/2019/08/06/sports-broadcasting-hall-of-fame-announces-class-of-2019/

​As a kid during the "Snap, Crackle, Pop, Rice Krispies" jingle era, I was fascinated by the recent "What does a brand sound like?" episode of the podcast Household Name. It’s true, what a brand sounds like can be just as important as what it looks like.
 
As early broadcast television transitioned from full-length songs touting the goods and services of its sponsors to shorter commercials with jingles from advertisers, the 1980's brought us one of the earliest and most successful examples of audio branding. Today, if any of us hears just a few bars of “Rhapsody in Blue,” we can’t help but think of United Airlines and the thrill of travel.  
 
Listening to this George Gershwin melody made me think about Leo Arnaud's "Bugler's Dream." ABC Sports first used this spine-tingling fanfare when it broadcast the 1964 Winter Olympic Games from Innsbruck, Austria. This movement from Arnaud’s “The Charge Suite” became so synonymous with ABC's Olympic telecasts, everyone started calling it the "Olympic Theme." From the first timpani drum beats, this piece of music conjured up so many emotions, that even another network, NBC, continued to use Arnaud’s rousing masterpiece when it took over broadcasting the Olympics. 
 
ABC was a pioneer when it came to fusing music with sports. In The World Was Our Stage, Doug Wilson writes about how music was more than just audio frosting slapped on top of a video cake. Whether they were using Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” to heighten the senses while soaring above the Lauberhorn downhill course in Switzerland or Frank Sinatra’s recording of “Foggy Day (in London town)” as a satirical overlay for the opening of Muhammad Ali’s bout with English boxer Brian London, their combination of ingredients created what Doug described as a “sensational tingle."   


Listen to "Bugler's Dream"  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3lpX-4hISk