Zac Brown Band steps up to the plate for NBC's 'Sunday Night Baseball' opening

NEW YORK (AP) – The Zac Brown Band now has something in common with Carrie Underwood and Lenny Kravitz. The three-time Grammy Award-winning southern rock band will star in the opening for NBC's Sunday night coverage of Major League Baseball. The band's opening segment will debut on Sunday 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 said in an email to The Associated Press. The Zac Brown Band sings a reimagined version of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "Karn Evil 9, 1st Impression Part 2." NBC Sports creative director Tripp Dixon said the song resonated because it features an organ and the first line is "Welcome back, my friends to the show that never ends." The majors has often been 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 also carry the theme of "waiting all day for Sunday night." Underwood has done the "Sunday Night Football" opening since 2013, a reimagined take on 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 shot in Milwaukee last month. A couple of seconds were featured on 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 more than a year to think about a "Sunday Night Basketball" open, brainstorming about baseball didn't begin in earnest until last November, when Major League Baseball and NBC agreed to a 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." After Sunday's game, the next six weeks will be on Peacock and NBCSN before NBC takes over from May 31 through Sept. 6. This week's game also carries special significance for Brown, who grew up in Georgia and followed the Braves. "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.