A million dollars a week for a 90-second TV opener? That was the internet’s favorite headline about Carrie Underwood and Sunday Night Football. It made for a great viral post—right up until Underwood said it wasn’t true. The Carrie Underwood SNF salary rumor has been bouncing around social feeds for more than a year, and it just spiked again during recent NFL broadcasts. Time to separate what’s confirmed from what’s catchy.
What Carrie Underwood actually said
The spark this time came from a widely shared post by the account MLFootball on X (formerly Twitter). With more than 360,000 followers, it claimed Underwood gets "ONE MILLION DOLLARS EACH WEEK" to sing the Sunday Night Football theme and alleged she "films all of it in one day & got paid 18 million dollars for that, per reports." The post first appeared in October 2024, piled up tens of thousands of likes, and keeps reappearing every Sunday night.
Underwood herself has already knocked this down—on tape. In May 2023, during an interview on The Howard Stern Show, Stern asked her straight: "Is it true? It’s $18 million a year?" Underwood didn’t hedge. "For me? No!" she said, sounding surprised. She added that her SNF work is "pretty pro bono," then joked, "I wish [it was $18M]. That’d be great. Awesome. Google steered you wrong there."
That’s the clearest on-the-record comment we have from the person actually doing the gig. No weekly million. No $18 million season. And a reminder from Underwood that search results aren’t proof, especially when the same unverified number keeps getting repeated across aggregators and blogs.
Underwood has fronted the SNF opener since 2013, taking over from Faith Hill. Each season she records a fresh take on "Waiting All Day for Sunday Night," a rework of Joan Jett’s anthem that sets the tone for NBC’s primetime showcase. The open is part concert clip, part highlight reel, and part ritual. For fans, her voice is now as familiar to Sunday night as the first third-and-long.
So where did that huge number come from? The post didn’t cite a contract, a network source, or union filings. It relied on "per reports"—the kind of phrase that often means "I saw this somewhere else." That’s how a number snowballs: one claim gets copied, search engines pick it up, and people assume it’s verified because it’s everywhere.
Fans didn’t exactly mind the chaos. Replies ranged from "dude I’ll sing that for 20 bucks" to "She does kill the SNF anthem tho." That mix—jokes, awe, and a little envy—is part of why the claim keeps spreading. Big round numbers travel fast. So do celebrity paychecks, real or not.
Now, about that "pretty pro bono" line. It doesn’t have to mean literally zero dollars. In entertainment, people sometimes use "pro bono" to mean the money isn’t the point, or that the pay is modest compared with the exposure. Underwood knows what the SNF platform is worth: a prime-time spot in front of millions, every week, for months. It’s a megaphone few artists get, and it’s tied to one of TV’s most-watched franchises.
There’s also the structure of these deals. TV openers like the SNF theme are usually handled as a seasonal contract, not a weekly payroll. The production team shoots the sequence in one or two days, stitches in player highlights that update during the season, and clears music and likeness rights. Payment, if any, is typically a negotiated fee for the season or a project rate—not a per-week singer’s salary.
The music side is its own maze. There’s the performance fee for the artist. There’s licensing for the song and master recording. There’s usage across platforms (broadcast, streaming clips, promos). There are union rules if the performer is a SAG-AFTRA member for on-camera work, or AFM rules if musicians are hired for recording sessions. All those pieces can add up or be kept lean, depending on the deal. What they aren’t is a weekly million-dollar ATM.
Could a major network spend big on a signature open? Sure. Could a superstar command a healthy fee? Of course. But "healthy" and "weekly $1 million" are not the same thing. And Underwood went out of her way to swat down the $18 million figure—on microphone, with a laugh.
For context, Sunday Night Football has been a ratings machine for years, often topping weekly broadcast charts. NBC treats the open like a brand stamp: familiar voice, familiar look, updated each season. Underwood’s presence keeps the identity consistent while letting the visuals and vocals evolve with the league. It’s a creative refresh that reminds viewers they’re in the big window now.
There’s also a real marketing loop here. The SNF opener keeps Underwood in front of casual viewers who might not follow country radio. In return, NBC gets a star who can land the note and the moment. It’s not a typical endorsement or tour sponsorship. It’s more like a season-long marquee cameo that launches every broadcast.
Some readers may ask: if the pay isn’t massive, why do it? Artists often take projects that do more than pay a bill. Think of award-show performances, halftime cameos, or TV residencies where the exposure or brand fit matters as much as the check. Underwood’s line—"pretty pro bono"—sounds like a nod to that reality. She gets the cultural footprint and a reliable showcase; NBC gets the voice that says, without words, "It’s Sunday night."
Why the million myth keeps coming back
The short answer: it’s easy and it’s sticky. Big, clean numbers feel true in a feed that moves fast. "Per reports" sounds official even when there’s no source. And repetition turns a rumor into a search result avalanche. Once the number is everywhere, people start saying, "Well, I saw it all over Google." Underwood herself joked about that exact loop: "Google steered you wrong."
Here’s how claims like this usually spread:
- A large aggregator posts a punchy number without sourcing.
- Smaller accounts rewrite it, citing the first post as "reports."
- Headline sites pick it up for clicks, often quoting each other, not a contract.
- Search engines index the pile-on, so the rumor looks "verified."
- The celebrity quote comes later—after the claim has racked up millions of impressions.
There’s also a confusion gap. People hear "she films it in one day" and assume a giant payday to match the convenience. But one-day shoots are normal for this kind of production. The heavy lift is in post: editing, graphics, weekly updates, clearances. The on-camera time is short by design.
So what can viewers do when a wild number pops up in the timeline? A quick gut-check helps:
- Look for a named source: a contract filing, an on-record network statement, or the artist saying it.
- Beware "per reports" without a link or a document.
- Check the timeline: did the claim appear after an actual interview that said the opposite?
- If the number is incredibly neat—"$1 million a week"—ask why it’s not rounded to a season fee.
Let’s line up the facts we do have:
- Underwood has been the SNF opener since 2013, taking over from Faith Hill.
- She records a new version each season; the segment updates with current players and teams.
- In May 2023, she publicly denied the $18 million figure, calling her work "pretty pro bono."
- The $1 million-per-week claim comes from social posts that don’t cite a contract or official source.
What we don’t have: her contract. NBC hasn’t posted it. Underwood hasn’t disclosed it. That’s normal. Entertainment contracts are private unless they show up in legal filings or union databases accessible only to members. Without those, the only on-the-record number is the one she gave: the rumor isn’t true.
None of this erases the obvious: Underwood’s voice is baked into the way America watches football on Sunday nights. The song cues the stakes. The montage sells the drama. Millions of people hum it under their breath while grabbing snacks. But cultural impact doesn’t require a weekly seven-figure check to be real.
There’s a bigger media lesson here. We’re all living with feeds that reward speed over sourcing. A claim that fits what we expect—"Huge network must pay giant money"—gets turbocharged. The fix isn’t to ignore fun posts. It’s to keep one eye on the source and another on the person who would actually know. In this case, she answered the question, on air, with a smile: "For me? No!"
As the NFL season rolls on, expect the clip of that MLFootball post to resurface again and again. Expect the quote from Underwood to get less traction than the eye-popping number. And expect the SNF opener to keep landing right on time, no matter what people think it costs. The work was likely finished in a day. The debate, clearly, is going to last a lot longer.
