Carrie Underwood Celebrates Athletes, Everyday Heroes In New Song “The Champion”

SUPER BOWL LII — “2017 Promo Shoot” — Pictured: Carrie Underwood — (Photo by: Paul Drinkwater/NBC Sports)

Carrie Underwood has teamed up with Ludacris for her brand new song, “The Champion,” which is being released globally today. She’ll open NBC’s Super Bowl LII on Feb. 4 with a special video filmed last year for the anthem, which she co-wrote with songwriters Brett James, Chris DeStefano, and Christopher Bridges PKA Ludacris, who Underwood asked to collaborate on the event song.

NBC Sports will also incorporate “The Champion” into its upcoming coverage of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.

“When we met with Carrie last year to discuss the Super Bowl open, we each brought ideas. Carrie presented first. After she spoke, we looked at each other and said ‘that’s the one,’” said Fred Gaudelli, Executive Producer of NBC Sunday Night Football and the network’s Super Bowl LII presentation. “Later on, our Olympics producers listened to ‘The Champion’ and decided that it would be a perfect complement for our Winter Games coverage. We are excited to highlight ‘The Champion’ in two events on the global stage in February.”

“When we were writing ‘The Champion,’ our main focus was to celebrate athletes at the top of their game, but we also wanted the song to resonate with people in their everyday lives,” says Underwood of the inspirational anthem.  “We hope the lyrics will inspire people to push themselves beyond their limits to conquer anything they are trying to accomplish or overcome. There’s a champion in every single one of us!”

Underwood, who has been the face and voice of NBC’s Sunday Night Football show open for the last five seasons, has been busy in the studio working on her new album which will be released on Capitol Records Nashville.

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Lorie Hollabaugh

Hollabaugh, a staff writer at MusicRow magazine, has over 20 years of music business experience and has written for publications including American Profile, CMA Close Up, Nashville Arts And Entertainment, The Boot and Country Weekly. She has a Broadcast Journalism and Speech Communication degree from Texas Christian University, (go Horned Frogs), and welcomes your feedback or story ideas at lhollabaugh@musicrow.com.

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