NBCUniversal, National Football League and Carrie Underwood sued over Sunday Night Football theme song
Football fans, are you ready for some litigation?! Per Yahoo! News, a group of songwriters have filed a federal lawsuit against NBCUniversal, the National Football League, Carrie Underwood, and others for allegedly plagiarizing a song originally posted on YouTube for their Sunday Night Football opening theme, “Game On.” Heidi Merrill, Alex Wong, Jeff Cohen and Niclas Lundin claim in their official complaint that Underwood and company only “slightly modified” Merrill’s song, which was originally posted in 2016, and used it without proper permissions or credit. Merrill also claims that the song was sent by email years ago to Underwood’s producer, Mark Bright, who ultimately passed on working with them.
For reference, here’s Merrill’s song from 2016:
And here is the Sunday Night Football opening theme that is currently under fire:
Aside from a title inspired by literally all things competitive, are there enough similarities here to raise alarm? We guess that’s for the judge to decide.