March Madness 2024: Diving Deep Into the 37 Year Old Tradition – Why Is ‘One Shining Moment’ Played at End of Championship Game Annually?

The March Madness is about to commence. 68 teams will square off against each other as is the tradition. They will compete for the National Championship and only one will emerge as the final winner. The champion will announce their glory by cutting the net and then have a tournament highlight played in the backdrop of the famous song “One Shining Moment.” But how did the tradition come into being and why was “One Shining Moment” chosen as a victory song?

For the record, the song was originally slated to be played after a football game.

How did One “Shining Moment” become the go-to song?

Written by David Barrett, One Shining Moment is played at the end of the coverage of CBS and TBS of the tournament Finale. It was written by Barrett in 1986 when he watched the basketball legend Larry Bird playing on the TV.

Barrett then gave the song to Armen Keteyian who was a high school friend. The song was then passed on to the CBS Sports’ creative director Doug Towey. It was here that Towey decided to play the song after Super Bowl XXI. The song however could not be played since the game extended beyond the expected hours and CBS Sports had lined up another program so the song was cancelled.

The song was then used during CBS’s coverage of the 1987 NCAA D1 Men’s Basketball Championship game. The exhilarating response to the song made it an annual tradition since then. The song hit a major roadblock when it was speculated that since the song was associated with CBS Sports, the rival networks would not play it when they broadcast the game.

The CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus then came forward to state that the song would also find its place when rivals cover the game. In 2020, the NCAA also announced a contest that would feature fans celebrating the song in their own way and the best version would be aired on TBS during pregame.

But since due to COVID-19 the tournament was canceled, the contest was also annulled. Other than that, there was no winner hence the song was also not played with the Championship Winner’s montage. But a few teams created their own snippets of the song.

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The song since then has had different versions used for the montages. Barrett’s original version was used from 1987 to 93. Other versions used belong to Teddy Pendergrass, Luther Vandross and Ne-Yo. Jennifer Hudson’s version was during the 2010 NCAA D1 men’s basketball tournament which also featured snippets from Hudson singing in a recording studio. This drew a lot of criticism from fans and then Vandross’s rendition was used in the subsequent year.