NBC’s Sunday Night Football premiered (Sept 12) with an all new opener featuring American Idol season 4 winner, Carrie Underwood. It’s the 9th consecutive year the country music star recorded the NFL event’s opening theme.
Once again, this year, Carrie sings “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night,” based on Joan Jett’s iconic “I Hate Myself for Loving You.”
Shot at Industrial Light & Magic’s cutting edge LED sound stage utilizing the company’s StageCraft LED virtual production technology recently used in The Mandalorian, the 2021 Sunday Night Football show open for the first time features a virtual football tailgate as a backdrop for Carrie’s performance.
“Shooting the new show open for Sunday Night Football is one of the highlights of my year,” said Carrie. “I just love the fact that we get to reinvent it every year. The team behind these shoots is incredible and it’s always a really fun day, especially this year getting to work with such amazing state-of-the-art technology.”
In addition, the show open highlights user-generated cameos from some of the NFL’s biggest stars, as well as fans’ self-recorded video from NFL tailgates.
The first Sunday night NFL game of the season pits the Chicago Bears against the Los Angeles Rams in Los Angeles. Watch the new theme below.
2021 Sunday Night Football Theme Featuring Carrie Underwood
The wait is finally over. Sunday Night is here.
Take us away, @CarrieUnderwood! pic.twitter.com/oXcUNBSgNS
— Sunday Night Football on NBC (@SNFonNBC) September 13, 2021
