CBS Sports Spectacular is a sportsanthologytelevision program that is produced by CBS Sports, the sports division of the CBS television network in the United States. The series began on January 3, 1960, as The CBS Sports Spectacular, and has been known under many different names, including CBS Sports Saturday, CBS Sports Sunday, Eye on Sports and The CBS Sports Show. The program continues to air on an irregular basis on weekend afternoons, especially during the late spring and summer months. Normally it airs pre-recorded "time-buy" sports events produced by outside companies, such as supercross or skiing competitions, or sponsored documentaries.
The earliest surviving telecast may be of the Twin 100 qualifying races before the second Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in 1960. NASCAR has a kinescope of it. In 1994, CBS had a new series of boxing bouts on Saturday or Sundays under the Eye on Sports banner. Tim Ryan and Gil Clancy were the commentators during this period. CBS continued airing boxing on a somewhat regular basis until 1998, by which time they had the NFL and college football back on their slate. As of early 2020, the series airs mainly on the CBS Sports Network. Currently, the most frequent sports that have been featured are the PBR Bull Riding series, the Lucas OilOff-Road Racing Series and Major League Fishing. Other events include the Deer Valley Celebrity Skifest, the Arete Awards for Courage in Sports, Year in Review shows and various documentaries. By 2008, this was a partial list of the events that were featured:
An original composition by Edd Kalehoff featuring scat vocals was used as the theme for The CBS Sports Spectacular beginning in 1970. From 1976 to 1978, the Electric Light Orchestra's "Fire on High" was used as the theme for the program. In 1979, the program switched to an "in-house" version of American composer Aaron Copland's symphonic instrumental "Fanfare for the Common Man", which was used until 1980. The CBS version of "Fanfare" – clocking in at 1 minute and eight seconds – was styled after the 9 minute, 40 second version recorded by UK progressive rock group Emerson, Lake & Palmer on its 1977 LP, Works Volume 1. For CBS' Super Bowl XVI coverage at the end of the 1981 NFL season, CBS' theme music would eventually become the theme for CBS Sports Saturday/Sunday. The music itself could be considered a hybrid of the theme used at the time for The NFL Today and their original college basketball theme.
