Carrie Underwood Cuts New Song ‘The Champion’ for 2018 Super Bowl
Carrie Underwood's partnership with the NFL is expanding. Variety reports that a new song called "The Champion" will play before the Super Bowl in 2018.
While NBC typically uses a variation of the Sunday Night Football theme song during Super Bowl coverage, SNF executive producer Fred Gaudelli called on Underwood to write a new track, leading to her creation of "The Champion." The song will be released leading up to the momentous game in February.
“I think it’s going to become a sports anthem,” Gaudelli notes. “It’s going to be one of those songs that you see cut to highlights for the next 25 years.”
See 7 Country Women Married to Pro Athletes
"The Champion" already has Underwood's husband's approval, too. “My husband loved it. He would listen to it before playoff games," the singer says of Mike Fisher, who former played in the NHL. He was apparently eager to play the song for his teammates on the Nashville Predators before games the 2016-2017 season, but he wasn't allowed.
"But that was a good indicator that we were on the right track," she adds.
The country superstar has been singing the Sunday Night Football theme since 2013 when she took over for Faith Hill. The 2017 intro continues with "Oh, Sunday Night," set to the tune of Underwood and Miranda Lambert's 2014 hit "Somethin' Bad." A new video for the theme debuted on Sept. 10, featuring Underwood strutting across the cities of America, uniting sports fans throughout the country with appearances by multiple football stars.
“They always feel like they make everything bigger and more grand than the year before,” Underwood says. “Here I feel like they wanted a theme of unity amongst all the sports fans. Everybody’s tuning in. Everybody’s got their teams that they’re rooting for.”
5 Things We Seriously Need to See at the CMAs This Year
Farewell Angelina Singing "House of the Rising Sun" is Beautiful, Haunting