Zac Brown Band to Kick Off NBC’s ‘Sunday Night Baseball’ with a Special Performance
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The Zac Brown Band is joining the ranks of Carrie Underwood and Lenny Kravitz as part of the opening segment for NBC’s Sunday night Major League Baseball coverage.
The three-time Grammy Award-winning southern rock group will make its debut for NBC’s “Sunday Night Baseball” on April 12, when the Atlanta Braves take on the Cleveland Guardians.
“It’s humbling, honestly, to have our band’s name mentioned in the same breath as theirs in this context means a lot. We’ve spent many years just trying to make music that connects with people, and something like this tells you that it’s reaching further than you ever imagined,” Brown stated in an email to *The Associated Press*.
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Zac Brown Band has also released a reimagined version of Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s “Karn Evil 9, 1st Impression Part 2.”
NBC Sports creative director Tripp Dixon noted that the song resonates due to its organ feature and its opening line: “Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends.”
Major League Baseball is often referred to as “The Show.”
“Those were the two elements we felt like, holy cow, that sounds like something to build this idea around,” he explained.
All three artists share the theme of “waiting all day for Sunday night.” Underwood has performed the opening for “Sunday Night Football” since 2013, reimagining Joan Jett’s 1988 hit “I Hate Myself for Loving You.” Similarly, Kravitz’s “Sunday Night Basketball” opening features Elvis Presley’s 1968 classic “A Little Less Conversation.”
The “Sunday Night Baseball” segment was filmed in Milwaukee last month, with a preview aired during the opening night broadcast featuring the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers.
Reflecting on the experience, Brown said, “It was one of those where you step back and think, how did we get here? We put everything we had into the performance, and then watching it come together with the visuals, the production, it took on a whole new life. The folks at NBC Sports really understood the energy we were going for. It felt like a genuine collaboration, and when I finally saw the finished product, I was really proud.”
Dixon mentioned that while he had over a year to conceptualize the baseball open, serious brainstorming only started last November, following Major League Baseball and NBC’s agreement on a three-year deal for Sunday night games and the wild-card playoff round.
“Selfishly, it’s been just a really fun challenge. We’d worked with Zac in a limited capacity about six years ago when he did a Thursday night tease for us on Thanksgiving,” Dixon added. “In terms of his music and trying to bring people together, it felt like a perfect fit allowing them to put their own spin on a classic.”
“It was a very ambitious, tight schedule. We didn’t have a lot of time to put it together, but you wouldn’t know it from what Zac came back with in terms of a song and a performance.”
Following Sunday’s game, the next six weeks will broadcast on Peacock and NBCSN before NBC resumes coverage from May 31 through September 6.
For Brown, this game holds particular significance as a Georgia native and lifelong Braves fan. “I’m a Georgia boy through and through, so having this debut on a night when the Braves are playing, that’s the kind of thing you just can’t script. Our fans know how much Atlanta means to us. To have this moment tied to our team, in our home state, it really does make it feel full circle,” he remarked.
