Carrie Underwood Is Back With โVery Differentโ Sunday Night Football Anthem
on Sep 08, 2024 โข Updated Jan 15, 2025

For the 12th consecutive year, Carrie Underwood kicked off the NFL regular season with the Sunday Night Football theme song.
Carrie Underwood brought a new twist to the Sunday Night Football theme for the 2024 season opener between the Los Angeles Rams and Detroit Lions. Sunday Night Football executive producer, Rob Hyland, teased the new rendition of โWaiting All Day For Sunday Nightโ in a recent interview.
โThe music is very different. We essentially flipped the song upside down. The song now starts with the chorus, which is something we used to always build toward,โ Hyland said.
Underwoodโs new theme song rendition is an updated twist on Joan Jettโs โI Hate Myself For Loving You.โ Pink! was the first artist to have the honor of singing โWaiting All Day For Sunday Nightโ to kick off Sunday Night Football games in 2006. The following year, country superstar Faith Hill took over and sang the song from 2007 to 2013.
When Carrie Underwood took over, the theme song changed to โOh, Sunday Night,โ a song inspired by the American Idol champโs 2014 duet with Miranda Lambert, โSomethinโ Bad.โ
In 2016, Underwood changed the song once again, this time to โGame On,โ a theme that got mixed reactions from football fans. Three seasons later, โWaiting All Day For Sunday Nightโ returned and has been the theme song since.
Carrie Underwood Initially Turned Down The Sunday Night Football Gig
In a recent interview with Yahoo!, Fred Gaudelli, executive producer of NFL coverage for NBC, said that Carrie Underwood was offered the opportunity to sing the SNF theme song the year after she won American Idolโฆand she said no.
Carrie later explained that she turned down the opportunity in 2006 because โit wasnโt the right time.โ
Gaudelli reached out to Underwood again seven years later, this time with proof that she would be a perfect fit for the gig.
โI showed her the demographic breakdown, and once that was done, sheโs like, โYou know what? Youโre right. We should do this,โโ Gaudelli said. โAnd that began a now 12-year run.โ
Each year, Underwood has had a say in the look and feel of the opener. Gaudelli gives credit to Carrie and her stylist for changing things up and getting creative with the look of each new season.
โWhen weโre trying things on, we want to coordinate with whatโs going on around me. But at the end of the day, they always kind of let me pick what I want to wear. Nobody has had any problems with what weโve picked out,โ Carrie Underwood said. โWe always have to be mindful to not be too team specific. So if I was going to wear blue and orange, it would look like [Iโm] a Broncos fan. We try to stay away from that kind of stuff and be kind of neutral โ but itโs hard because every color is spoken for! We try to keep it to where nobody would think Iโm supporting one specific team.โ
How Much Does Carrie Underwood Get Paid For Singing Sunday Night Football Theme Song?
Life & Style reports that Carrie Underwood earns $1 million per week for singing โWaiting All Day For Sunday Night.โ With the regular NFL season lasting 18 weeks, that makes for an $18 million payday for the Grammy Award winner.
RELATED: CARRIE UNDERWOOD REPLACING KATY PERRY AS โAMERICAN IDOLโ JUDGE
The NFL paycheck is a hefty addition to Underwoodโs already impressive net worth. With income from album sales, her tours, her own fitness app, and endorsements, Carrie is reportedly worth more than $140 million.
Watch Carrie Underwoodโs 2024 Sunday Night Football theme song performance in the video below.