Sunday Night Football Fans Can’t Get Enough of Carrie Underwood’s Theme Song

It wouldn’t be Sunday Night Football without Carrie Underwood. The country star and American Idol winner has been a staple of the program for the past 11 years. That’s not changing any time soon either. The singer is back with another rendition of “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night.”

Underwood is continuing with the original, which is a modified version Joan Jett’s “I Hate Myself For Loving You,” after trying out a few other tunes over the past few years. Underwood tried out “Oh Sunday Night” and “Game On” but nothing quite fit like the original tune, which the singer brought back in 2019.

Fans love the catchy tune and are happy that’s back again. For some, it just wouldn’t be Sunday Night Football without Underwood’s promo.

While Underwood didn’t originate doing the promo, she has been involved over the past decade. Pink first started performing for Sunday Night Football in 2006. Faith Hill would take over the following year before Underwood replaced her in 2014.

Underwood opened up about performing the song to The Morning Mash. She explained what the recording process is like.

“It’s one main version, top to bottom, and then kind of filling in lines,” Underwood said. “When we go in to record, we do it all at once. I do the whole main version, but then we go through and pick up all the matchups for each week of regular-season football, and then we go into playoff football. And I then sing every possible combination of teams that could possibly maybe play each other.”

Underwood has been doing the job so long that she’s gained recognition with some NFL players who saw her perform on TV before joining the League themselves. For instance, Travis Kelce thanked her for doing the song.

“I think my favorite is when … it kind of dawns on me that it’s like, before these guys were playing in Sunday Night Football games, they were watching Sunday Night Football,” Underwood said. “It would’ve been the equivalent of me watching awards shows or people performing on TV, just being like, ‘Oh my gosh, if I could only do that.’ … And I’ve been [recording the theme for] 11 years, so some of these guys were younger, watching these football games, just thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, if I could be on Sunday Night Football.’ And then, when they get there, I’m a little part of their journey, which is really cool.”

[Photo by Mike Coppola/WireImage]