NBC Sunday Night Football (abbreviated as SNF) is an American weekly television broadcast of National Football League (NFL) games on NBC and Peacock in the United States. It began airing on August 6, 2006, with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, which opened that year's preseason. NBC took over the rights to the Sunday prime time game telecasts from ESPN, which carried the broadcasts from 1987 to 2005. At the same time, ESPN began broadcasting Monday Night Football when it was dropped from sister network ABC which later returned in 2020. Previously, NBC had aired American Football League (AFL), and later American Football Conference (AFC), games from 1965 until 1997, when CBS took over those rights.
During the 2011–12 season, Sunday Night Football became the first sports program to hold the position as Nielsen's most-watched program on American network television during the year, beating American Idol, which held that honor for eight consecutive seasons beginning in 2004; Sunday Night Football repeated this feat three years running, beginning with the 2013–14 season.
Upon NBC's assumption of the Sunday prime-time game rights, Al Michaels, John Madden, Fred Gaudelli, and Drew Esocoff, who served as the respective play-by-play announcer, color commentator, lead producer, and director, joined SNF in the same positions they held during the latter portion of the ABC era of Monday Night Football. Madden retired prior to the 2009 season, and was succeeded in that role by Cris Collinsworth. Mike Tirico succeeded Michaels following Super Bowl LVI in February 2022.
Since 2014, sister cable channel Universo has carried Spanish-language simulcasts of select games, after years of aborted attempts to simulcast the games on Telemundo. As with the NFL's other television partners, NBC provides Spanish-language audio feed of the game broadcasts via second audio program (SAP), formerly noted as being "provided by Telemundo" before the rebranding of that entity's sports division to Telemundo Deportes. With the former mun2's relaunch on February 1, 2015, Universo began to carry the full season with the start of the 2015 season and simulcast Super Bowl XLIX, the channel carrying Spanish-language simulcasts of NFL games and NBC Sports properties. Telemundo would later carry Spanish language broadcasts of select games, beginning in 2021, with an NFL Wild Card game. Telemundo also broadcast Super Bowl LVI in 2022. Recently, TeleXitos has been a near simulcast of Universo programming at all hours and as a result has shown the football broadcasts.
Studio show
NBC's broadcast begins at 7 p.m. Eastern Time with its pre-game show, which runs until kickoff (which usually occurs around 8:20 p.m. Eastern). The show serves the same purpose as NFL Primetime did for ESPN, offering recaps of the early action as well as a preview of the game to come. The show emanates from the NBC Sports studios in Connecticut as well as at the game site. Maria Taylor, Chris Simms, Jason Garrett, Devin McCourty, Mike Florio, and Matthew Berry broadcast from the studio while Jac Collinsworth, Tony Dungy, and Rodney Harrison report from the game. Tirico, Collinsworth, and Stark will also appear.
In 2021, a post-game show began airing on NBC's Peacock streaming service under the name Peacock Sunday Night Football Final.NBC Sports adds new NFL streaming show after 'Sunday Night Football' to air on Peacock – Scooby Axson, USA Today, September 8, 2021 Originally hosted by Kathryn Tappen and Simms, it is currently hosted by Jac Collinsworth, Dungy, and Harrison.
Contract NBC's current NFL contract, which runs from the 2023 season until the 2034 season, includes the rights to the season-opening Thursday night NFL Kickoff Game, another primetime game played on Thanksgiving Night, and at least two playoff games, one in the Wild Card round and one in the Divisional Playoffs, along with an additional Wild Card playoff game in 2023, 2026 and 2031 seasons. NBC will also air a Sunday primetime Wild Card game for 7 years from 2021 to 2027. NBC rotates the rights to the Super Bowl with other NFL television rights holders, obtaining the rights in 2026 (for Super Bowl LX), 2030 (for Super Bowl LXIV), and 2034 (for Super Bowl LXVIII), all in Winter Olympic years. Between 2006 and 2014, NBC also had rights to the Pro Bowl but lost it to ESPN/ABC from 2015 onward.
Between 2023 and 2028, NBC has the rights to one additional regular-season game to be exclusively aired on Peacock. In 2023, this was a matchup between the Buffalo Bills and the Los Angeles Chargers and the fourth quarter was presented commercial-free. In 2024, Peacock aired the Week 1 game between the Green Bay Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles on the Friday night following the Kickoff Game – in a matchup that was the first ever NFL fixture in Brazil. The NFL's media contract provides the rights for one Wild Card playoff game to be exclusively streamed and Peacock obtained the rights to air one during 2023–24 season in addition to the 2 Wild Card games NBC already had under the contract, which was a matchup between the Chiefs and the Dolphins. From 2024 onwards, the exclusive streaming playoff game will be aired by Amazon Prime. All NBC NFL games on television are streamed on Telemundo Deportes in Spanish.
NBC is the current home of the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, which begins the NFL's preseason each August. Usually, the game is aired on the Sunday after the Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony the night before. In 2017, the game was moved to the Thursday before the Induction Ceremony, which made the game the official start of Hall of Fame Weekend. Due to NBC's broadcast commitments to the Summer Olympics, in every year the games are held, the Hall of Fame Game is moved to another network – Fox in 2021 and ESPN/ABC in 2024. In Summer Olympics years, NBC hosts another preseason game in lieu of the Hall of Fame Game, generally in the last week of the preseason schedule. In 2021, this was a matchup between the Atlanta Falcons and the Cleveland Browns, and in 2024, it was a matchup between the New England Patriots and the Washington Commanders.
Scheduling Opening game The first regular season game to be shown by NBC under this contract, between the Miami Dolphins and the Pittsburgh Steelers, aired on September 7, 2006, followed by the first Sunday-night game – between the Indianapolis Colts and the New York Giants – on September 10, 2006. The actual first game of the run – the 2006 Pro Football Hall of Fame Game between the Oakland Raiders and the Philadelphia Eagles – was televised on August 6, 2006, also on NBC.
Thanksgiving The first Thanksgiving game to be shown by NBC, between the New England Patriots and the New York Jets (a.k.a. the Butt Fumble game), aired on November 22, 2012. Prior to then, the primetime Thanksgiving game aired on NFL Network via Thursday Night Football between 2006 and 2011.
Super Bowl The first Super Bowl to be shown by NBC under this contract, Super Bowl XLIII, between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals, aired on February 1, 2009.
Flexible scheduling NBC Sunday Night Football is the beneficiary of the league's flexible-scheduling system. Since the NFL considers SNF to be its featured game of the week, for the final seven weeks of the season (seven of the final eight weeks during the 2006, 2011, 2016, 2017, 2022, and 2023 seasons because of Christmas weekend), the NFL has the flexibility in selecting games that are more intriguing and typically have playoff implications to air on Sunday night.
Similarities to ABC's NFL coverage
Much of NBC's SNF production crew comes from ABC/ESPN, including Fred Gaudelli and Drew Esocoff (who respectively serve as producer and director of the broadcasts), as ESPN moved most of its previous Sunday night crew over to Monday Night Football. Michaels, Madden and Andrea Kremer also came to NBC directly from ABC/ESPN, and Football Night in Americas Sterling Sharpe was a member of ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown in recent years (calling several Sunday night games for ESPN in 2005). With regard to using ABC/ESPN talent, NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol said, "I was not interested in the quote, unquote vanity of starting anew ... There's not a lot of room for experimentation."
In addition, NBC has the starters for each team introduce themselves on each side of the ball (though the strict "player name/position/playing college" introductions of the past have been relaxed, and now players can list their birthplace or high school in the last part rather than their playing college, or even their college's common nickname, such as Miami (FL)'s "The U"), much as ABC did in the last few years of its run, and the short post-game show (done to allow affiliates to start their late newscasts) follows a similar format to ABC's. NBC also used this practice on NBC-produced Thursday Night Football broadcasts on NBC and/or NFL Network. These introductions would serve as the basis for the famous East/West Bowl sketch on the television series Key & Peele. Beginning in 2025, NBC would also use the player introductions for their NBA coverage, however, they would only be used for the visiting team.
Michaels and Madden ended each telecast in the 2007 and 2008 NFL seasons by selecting an MVP for that night's game to receive the Horse Trailer award (with a photo of each recipient being affixed to the side of a production truck, also known as a "horse trailer"). This concept originated from Madden's days with CBS, where he invented the similar "Turkey Leg Award" for the Thanksgiving Day game in 1989 (he later took the concept to Fox, then expanded it to every game of the year with the Horse Trailer Award when he joined ABC in 2002). In the 2006 season, the MVP concept was modified slightly, where the game's MVP was called the "Rock Star of the Game" and had his photo placed on a display at the "Top of the Rock" observation deck atop 30 Rockefeller Plaza, NBC's New York headquarters, in New York. When Madden retired following Super Bowl XLIII, the Horse Trailer Player of the Game award was discontinued.
Theme music Academy Award winner John Williams composed the instrumental theme music, titled "Wide Receiver", for Sunday Night Football. For Super Bowl XLIII, NBC commissioned Joel Beckerman of Man Made Music to create new instrumental cues adding techno and rock elements around the main brass melody. These cues replaced the original Williams arrangements full-time at the start of the 2009 season.
In 2006, singer-songwriter Pink reworked the lyrics of the Joan Jett song "I Hate Myself for Loving You" into a Sunday Night Football theme song, retitled "Waiting All Day for Sunday Night". Pink also performed the theme song for the 2006 season. Several alternative versions were used throughout the season, substituting different lyrics when appropriate (such as "Waiting All Year For Opening Night" (During the Kickoff game of each season), "Waiting All Year for Sunday Night" (for Week 1 SNF games), or "Waiting All Day For A Wild Card Fight").
In 2007, country singer Faith Hill replaced Pink as the singer of the opening theme, and a new arrangement of the Joan Jett song coincided with her debut. The Faith Hill intro, in particular, was not without criticism and parody. The intro was lampooned in the October 9, 2010, episode of Saturday Night Live, with host Jane Lynch as Hill (with Jason Sudeikis as Al Michaels and Bill Hader as Cris Collinsworth). In the 30 Rock episode "Season 4", the character of Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski) sings what appears to be an allusion to the Faith Hill intro for NBC's fictional Tennis Night in America program. In the South Park episode entitled "Faith Hilling", Eric Cartman sings an obvious spoof of Hill's actual Sunday Night Football song. On April 15, 2013, Hill announced that she would no longer sing the intro song for Sunday Night Football.