They’d been waiting all day for Carrie Underwood.
Many days. Years, actually.
When NBC executives originally asked her to sing the “Sunday Night Football” open, she declined. It was 2006, Underwood had just won season four of “American Idol” and launched a career that would soon produce millions of album sales, eight Grammy wins and countless fans.
“At that time in my life there was so much going on,” Underwood recently told Yahoo Entertainment. “It wasn’t the right time.”
That time would come seven years later.
The gig first went to Pink, who held it for one season before scheduling conflicts set in. She was succeeded by Faith Hill, who welcomed football fans to the final game of every Sunday slate for six years before moving on.
That opened an opportunity in 2013 for NBC to make another pitch to Underwood, who this time accepted the role and has since held it for 12 years.
That stretch of pregame consistency has made her and her lyrics an NFL broadcast intro mainstay, asking not if viewers are ready for some football, but stating how eagerly she’s been anticipating kickoff.
“I’ve been waiting all day for Sunday night…”
How long has Carrie Underwood been on Sunday Night Football?
Underwood opened her 12th season on “Sunday Night Football” when the Los Angeles Rams faced the Detroit Lions on Sept. 8.
A hype woman for the primetime showdown, she sings a rendition of Joan Jett’s “I Hate Myself for Loving You” with the chorus and title changed to “Waiting All Day For Sunday Night.”
Only during football season, of course, might anyone be waiting all day for Sunday night. It’s a time typically reserved for remembering the weekend that was and lamenting the work week to come — with homework to finish, obligations to fulfill and alarm clocks to set.
A football game, at least temporarily, can change that vibe. More than 20 million households tune in to “Sunday Night Football” each week, making it prime-time television’s No. 1 show for 13 consecutive years.
Throughout much of that stretch, Underwood has been the show’s opening act. And like a theme song for a popular network series, her voice is a welcoming invitation to the day’s final game.
“It’s really a signature introduction,” said NBC Sports creative director Tripp Dixon, who has worked on the intro throughout Underwood’s tenure. “So, it’s really designed to set the tone for the three-hour telecast. To me, it’s like the cover of a great book, or a curtains rising moment.”
Carrie Underwood is back as NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” show opener. This marks the country superstar’s 12th season singing the famous theme, and Access Hollywood’s Zuri Hall exclusively joined her on set to talk all about it. Catch “Sunday Night Football” on Sundays at 8:20 PM ET on NBC and Peacock.
What song does Carrie Underwood sing on Sunday Night Football?
Underwood and NBC reimagine the intro each season, striving to give it new life and energy.
The song has been changed entirely on two occasions under her reign. Beginning in 2015, she performed “Oh, Sunday Night” for two seasons and then “Game On” for another, before returning to SNF’s musical roots in 2019 with Jett’s familiar melody and “Waiting All Day.”
It has since received a slight annual remix.
“For us, it’s a great collaboration every season, and the fact that she pushes us to go, ‘Hey, what are we doing differently?’ I think it just makes it unique and fun and exciting every season,” Dixon said. “There’s never that, ‘Oh, we’re gonna run it back.’ It’s not that. We toss the playbook out and go, ‘Ok, how are we doing this?'”
Developing the new intro is typically a four-month process that begins with the music. For this year’s iteration, the song’s chorus became the opening line:
I’VE BEEN WAITIN’ ALL DAY FOR SUNDAY NIGHT
THE TOUGH GET ROUGH IN A PRIMETIME FIGHT
MORE THAN A GAME, IT’S EVERY FAN’S RIGHT
THAT’S WHY WE ARE WAITIN’ ALL DAY FOR SUNDAY NIGHT
“Obviously the challenge is usually the chorus has the most energy,” Dixon said. “But Carrie did this great kind of down-tempoed, dreamy version of it, and it really opened up the piece in a different way in terms of how we were telling the story.”
Underwood typically records the master track and all team matchups, including some potential flex games, in Nashville prior to the intro’s visual production. Her recording session takes approximately three hours, Dixon estimates.
“It’s a tribute to her powerhouse voice that she’s able to do it all in one session,” he said.
After months of pre-production and exchanging ideas and feedback with Underwood’s team, production begins. For the last three seasons, the intro has been filmed at Resorts World Theatre in Las Vegas, the home of Underwood’s ongoing Reflection residency.
“The unspoken agreement is she’ll bring her A game and we need to bring ours,” Dixon said. “Because her time is at a premium, so we probably have about six hours on camera with her to accomplish all these things. So all that pre-production and planning has to pay off and everything needs to be seamless on that shoot day.”
This season’s concept was to make Underwood become part of the “Sunday Night Football” weekly road show, capturing her arrival at each week’s venue from bus to stadium to stage.
“This is a constantly evolving narrative where we’re changing out the highlights, we’re changing out certain scenes to make them matchup specific,” Dixon said. “It made sense to make it feel like she’s part of this show that’s constantly on the road.”
Dixon and his team craft a scene that doesn’t require Underwood to be directly on camera when she reveals the week’s matchup during the intro. The shot in this season’s version is taken from behind the stage while Underwood looks out at the crowd and the team logos flash on screen.
“Sunday Night Football is a spectacle,” Dixon said. “It’s not just a sportscast, it’s an entertainment show and I think that Carrie, a world class singer like herself, kind of helps echo that notion.”
By setting the tone with her familiar intro.
“When that finally hits air, for me, it’s probably one of the more enjoyable minute and 35 seconds I have in the fall,” Dixon said. “I think the real credit goes to the team that’s doing the three-hour telecast that follows it. But it’s gratifying to see it hit air after all of that work.”
And worthwhile for those who had been waiting all day for Sunday night.