Chris Stapleton, Snoop Dogg, and drummer Cindy Blackman Santana have been kicking off Monday Night Football with their rendition of “In the Air Tonight” since the beginning of the 2023-2024 season. Last year, Stapleton and company got fans amped before every game of the regular season and performed during some postseason games as well. So, it is likely that fans will hear them crush their Phil Collins cover before tonight’s (January 13) NFL Wild Card game between the Rams and the Vikings.
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Stapleton and company performed “In the Air Tonight” before all of the games that aired on ESPN including the Wild Card games last season. The fans lost that pre-game hype session as the postseason progressed and ESPN stopped airing games. Tonight’s game falls on a Monday and will be on ESPN. So, all signs point to an “in the Air Tonight” performance before the competition.
[RELATED: NFL Fans Are Obsessing Over Chris Stapleton’s Playoff Theme Song on ESPN]
Where Chris Stapleton Fits into Monday Night Football History
Chris Stapleton is the most recent country star to take over the Monday Night Football theme. Before him, Hank Williams Jr. performed “All My Rowdy Friends Are Here on Monday Night” to kick off Monday night games.
Bocephus started performing the high-energy country banger before games in 1989. He continued to get the audience hyped for NFL action until 2011. ESPN cut ties with the country legend in 2011 after he made some politically charged comments during an appearance on Fox and Friends. During his appearance on the morning talk show, he compared then-president Barak Obama to Adolf Hitler. Later in the conversation, he claimed that the Obama administration was “the enemy” of the American people. This was enough to make ESPN decision-makers distance themselves from him.
However, that only lasted for six years. In 2017, the network brought back Williams and “All My Rowdy Friends Are Here on Monday Night” until 2020. During the pandemic, the NFL was allowing only very small crowds to attend games. As a result, ESPN dropped Hank Jr. and his song once again. This time, though, they claimed that it had nothing to do with his political leanings. Instead, they worried that the song about a large group of people getting together to watch football would send the wrong message. However, some fans believed that the move was politically motivated due to the highly divisive political climate of the United States in 2020.
Featured Image by Astrida Valigorsky/WireImage
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