Celine Dion steals the spotlight with Sunday Night Football opening featuring her 1996 hit
Celine Dion made her mark on the football scene as she opened the live broadcast of Sunday Night Football on NBC and Peacock, featuring in a pre-recorded segment set to her 1996 hit song "It’s All Coming Back to Me Now."
The segment kicked off the game between the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers, who haven’t played against each other in primetime since 1982. It also highlighted the teams' first matchup since their Super Bowl XXX game in January 1996.
Dion begins the segment by reflecting on the significance of football.
“I think my favorite thing about this game is its power to connect who we are, to who we were,” she said. “To prove that our most powerful memories, our most enduring loves, can stay with us forever.”
The camera then shows her wearing a Super Bowl XXX sweatshirt with the logos and helmets of both teams. The Cowboys and Steelers have played each other in three Super Bowls — more than any other matchup in Super Bowl history.
“You know what I’m talking about, right?” Dion continues. “Sometimes, some nights, it all just comes back.”
Footage of previous Cowboys and Steelers games is shown throughout the video.
“Their love affair — well, maybe not love the way I usually sing about it, but still, you know, work with me here,” Dion adds, before quoting from her song: “I mean, ‘When you touch me like this. When you hold me like that.’ It kind of fits, no?”
She elaborates further: “But really what beautiful passion it produced, what painful heartbreak it revealed so, so long ago. Like so many old flames it always feels right when they’re back together. Don’t you think? Like tonight evoking the kind of magic they once produced. The Cowboys and the Steelers, a timeless classic on Sunday night.”
The video concludes with Dion being doused in Gatorade, a nod to the tradition of celebrating game-winning coaches.