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Carrie Underwood, the NFL, and NBC Sued Over 'Sunday Night Football' Theme Song

Home / Breaking News / Carrie Underwood, the NFL, and NBC Sued Over 'Sunday Night Football' Theme Song

By TheBlast Staff on June 19, 2019 at 6:13 AM PDT

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Carrie Underwood is being sued by a woman who claims she submitted a song to the superstar's producer who then turned it into the "Sunday Night Football" theme song without giving her any credit ... or money.

According to court documents obtained by The Blast, Heidi Merrill claims she and three other writers came up with a song called "Game On" in late 2016.

She claims she uploaded the song to YouTube in March 2017 and even got featured during a broadcast of "CBS Inside College Basketball."

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In August of 2017, Merrill claims she attended a conference in Nashville in large part because she knew that Underwood's producer, Mark Bright, would be in attendance.

She says she knew that Underwood was looking for a new song for the 2018 NFL season and told Bright she had a song she thought would be good for Underwood.

Merrill claims that Bright told her to submit it to his assistant, which she claims she did via email. About two months later, she says she got an email back saying, "I'm sorry, we're going to have to pass."

Fast-forward almost a year and when "Sunday Night Football" premiered on September 6, 2018, Underwood performed a song called "Game On" ... which she claims is "substantially — even strikingly — similar, if not identical" to her own song of the same name.

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Merrill claims Underwood's song is similar "not only in title but in many other ways, including in tempo, meter, time signature, rhythmic contours and patterns, melodic contours and patterns, hooks ... note progression and use, and chord progression."

In her lawsuit, Merrill cites a similar lawsuit where Underwood and Bright were essentially accused of the same thing with the song "Something in the Water." That case was eventually dismissed.

Merrill and her songwriters are suing Underwood, Bright, NBC, the NFL, and others and are seeking unspecified damages.

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