Zac Brown Band Tapped for MLB 'Sunday Night Baseball' Intro, Reimagines Emerson, Lake & Palmer Classic

The Zac Brown Band joins the ranks of Carrie Underwood and Lenny Kravitz, lending their musical talents to a major sports broadcast.

The three-time Grammy Award-winning band will be featured in the opening segment of NBC’s Sunday night coverage of Major League Baseball.

The debut is slated for Sunday, April 12th, when the Atlanta Braves host the Cleveland Guardians in the first "Sunday Night Baseball" game on NBC.

"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 shared with The Associated Press.


Zac Brown Band's rendition is a reimagined version of Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s “Karn Evil 9, 1st Impression Part 2.”

NBC Sports creative director Tripp Dixon explained the song's appeal: its use of the organ and opening line “Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends."

He noted the connection to baseball, 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 said.

All three openings capture the anticipation of "waiting all day for Sunday night."

Underwood has been doing the “Sunday Night Football” opening since 2013, with a reimagining of Joan Jett’s 1988 song “I Hate Myself for Loving You”. Kravitz’s opening to “Sunday Night Basketball” uses Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation,” which came out in 1968.

The “Sunday Night Baseball” opening was filmed in Milwaukee last month, with a brief preview airing during NBC’s opening night broadcast between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers.

"It was one of those experiences 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,” Brown said. “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."

While Dixon had ample time to develop the “Sunday Night Basketball” open, the baseball concept began in earnest last November, coinciding with Major League Baseball and NBC's three-year deal for Sunday night games and the wild-card round of the playoffs.

"Selfishly, it’s been just a really a fun challenge. But in terms of working with somebody, I think just not only just a familiar song, but 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 said.

"I think just in terms of his music and trying to bring people together, it just felt like really the right fit in terms of letting them 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, coverage shifts to Peacock and NBCSN for six weeks before returning to NBC from May 31st through September 6th.

This week’s game holds special significance for Brown, a Georgia native and lifelong Braves fan.

"Man, that is not lost on me at all. 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 said.

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