NBC's Sunday Night Football Intro With Faith Hill Is Bad | SportsGrid
by Dan Fogarty | 12:33 pm, September 19th, 2011
Reddit user moby323 has dubbed NBC’s Sunday Night Football intro, featuring Faith Hill, as the “worst intro in the history of television.” And although we’re hesitant to say it’s “the worst in history,” (there is always something worse out there) we’ll say that NBC’s country ode to pro football is the worst intro currently on television. Here are five reasons why.
5. “Professional football and Faith Hill in tight black leather.” This should work, but it doesn’t. An attractive woman dressed provocatively is beckoning you to watch the NFL. This is a no-brainer. A slam-dunk. No amount of meddling could ruin this unruinable starting point. But ruined it is, and the fact that such an easy concept gets fumbled makes things worse.
4. This has to be a parody, but it isn’t. This 100% real NBC sports intro is remarkably similar to 30 Rock’s 100% fake NBC sports intro. This is never a good sign.
3. Why is Dwight Freeney swim-moving his way through a cornfield? Most of Sunday Night Football’s intro is dedicated to football players doing football things, set against a very identifiable backdrop from their team’s home state. In other words, shots of Adrian Peterson running across a frozen pond, and Eli Manning looking goofy in Times Square.
2. When you appeal to everyone, it’s appealing to no one. Alright, assembled East Coast TV Men. How do we capture the hearts and minds of the rest of America with this intro? With country music, that’s what. Those slack-jawed yokels will be powerless to resist. Which brings us to…
1. The song. We are not fans of the song, but you probably could’ve guessed that by this point.
It sort of reminds me of Celine Dion singing AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" at I think one of VH1's Divas show. She made it so slick and polished (when the song was great in the first place in large part because of its raw and gritty vocals) that it wound up ruining the song and making it outright cheesy. To me, networks that feel the need to use a popular singer to intro their sports coverage, is just a case of TV networks selling out in order to appeal to a "hipper" or younger audience (it cheapens the coverage if you ask me and lacks in substance). For example, remember when ABC used the Pussycat Dolls to sing "Right Now" at the start of their NBA telecasts?