How Did Green Day Become The SportsCenter House Band?

SportsCenter doesn't often use popular music as background for their various clip packages, but if you watch as much of the show as I do, you may have noticed that only one band ever seems to make the cut.

Seriously, does someone at ESPN owe Green Day money? As this montage shows, there have been several instances over the last month or two, where Billie Joe and Co. have been used as the bed music—and that doesn't even count the omnipresent sports world use of recent single "Know Your Enemy." It made sense back in early May when their new album, 21st Century Breakdown was set to be released. But now three weeks later, they're still in heavy rotation. (The last clip showed up this morning.) And it seems that no other musical act is ever good enough to play the show out. Seriously, I watch a lot of SportsCenter.

Even more remarkable, all Green Day albums—not just the one that is ostensibly being promoted—are fair game. Deep cuts off Nimrod? That kind of retro product placement wouldn't even fly at The Peach Pit. (In case you're wondering, the band's label, Reprise, is owned by Warner Bros., which last I checked, has not been assimilated by Disney/ABC/GloboCom.)

Maybe I watch too much SportsCenter.