Country music icon Carrie Underwood has served as the powerhouse voice behind NBC‘s thrilling Sunday Night Football opening for years, but she’s set the record straight on speculation that she earns $1 million weekly for the performance.

Her powerful take on ‘Waiting All Day for Sunday Night,’ which has energized NFL audiences since 2013 and reaches approximately 20 million viewers each episode, never generated the rumored $18 million annual windfall.

The track, originally adapted from Joan Jett’s classic ‘I Hate Myself for Loving You’ and previously delivered by Pink and Faith Hill, launches NFL telecasts with Underwood’s signature vocals. It comes just a month after the singer paid tribute to tragic celebrity after he died in a plane crash.

Despite ongoing speculation, especially a viral tweet that resurfaced last year, Underwood set things straight during a 2023 appearance on Howard Stern’s program, confirming the figures were wildly inaccurate.

Though she maintains she doesn’t earn a designated fee for her work on the Sunday Night Football opener, the vocalist expressed genuine excitement about her involvement with the production.

During a conversation with Yahoo Entertainment, she revealed: “Growing up we didn’t have cable or anything like that, so whatever was on TV was what we watched. Fortunately, that was a lot of football on Sundays.”

The Grammy-winning performer appeared satisfied that she doesn’t directly monetize her vocal contribution to the broadcast.

She declared, “It worked out exactly how it should have. It is pretty awesome to be a part of the biggest show on TV.”

The American Idol judge expressed delight at her young sons hearing her song during NFL coverage. She shared, “They love seeing me on TV. But even with younger kids who obviously did not see me on American Idol or early in my career, to some kiddos, [SNF] is what they know me from. So I’ll take it. That’s really amazing.”

Underwood lauded Sunday Night Football, stating: “I feel like they do such a great job year after year of reinventing and reinvigorating the open. People know it’s very comforting to see the open and kind of have a general idea of what it’s gonna feel like. But the way that they go in every year and do what they do to keep it fresh is really cool.”

Fred Gaudelli, NBC NFL executive producer, revealed the origins of the iconic song, saying: “I’ve always been a huge Joan Jett fan. I don’t know if it was the first song I went to, but I started listening [to it] and came up with the line, ‘Waiting all day for Sunday Night.'”.

While Pink was the first artist to perform the tune, Gaudelli stressed that Carrie Underwood had always been his first choice. He explained, “We reached out to Carrie, she wasn’t really interested,” while Underwood later reflected on the timing, “At that time in my life there was so much going on. It wasn’t the right time.”