Carrie Underwood holds the record for the longest-running singer of the NFL theme song, but not without facing some controversies. In 2019, singer-songwriter Heidi Merrill claimed that Underwood and her team had plagiarized the previous year\u2019s theme, \u201cGame On,\u201d from her.<\/p>\n
Underwood was announced as the singer for the \u201cNBC Sunday Night Football\u201d theme song by the NFL in 2013, succeeding Faith Hill who held the role for six years. Over a decade, this role has become synonymous with Underwood. This led many songwriters to eagerly vie for involvement in each year\u2019s new offering. In 2017, Heidi Merrill submitted a song for consideration by Underwood\u2019s producer. When Underwood\u2019s \u201cGame On\u201d was released as the following year\u2019s theme song and bore striking similarities to Merrill\u2019s submission (without proper credit), Merrill and her team filed a lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Merrill and her co-songwriters, Niclas Lundin, Alex Wong, and Jeff Cohen, claimed that the resemblance between Underwood\u2019s \u201cGame On\u201d and their own was not coincidental. They pointed to an acknowledgment of receipt from the assistant to Mark Bright, Underwood\u2019s producer, suggesting that their track had been heard before the creation of Underwood\u2019s song. They cited similarities in song title, note progression, chord progression, among other elements. As a result, they alleged substantial financial losses and sought a jury trial for damages.<\/p>\n
Merrill\u2019s lawyer, Sam P. Israel, stated that he believed the similarities were a deliberate attempt to appropriate the work of other artists. However, just under four months later, the lawsuit was quietly dropped. The exact reason for the withdrawal was not disclosed. Despite this legal episode, it did not seem to affect Underwood\u2019s standing with the NFL or NBC. In September 2023, she released a reboot of the beloved \u201cWaiting All Day for Sunday Night\u201d in honour of the new season. Merrill\u2019s \u201cGame On\u201d remains available on YouTube for those interested in adding it to their game day playlist.<\/p>\n
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Carrie Underwood holds the record for the longest-running singer of the NFL theme song, but not without facing some controversies\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":4557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[1232],"class_list":["post-4556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity-news","tag-carrie-underwood"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}