On Sunday night, October 15, 2017, Scotty McCreery walked onto the field at Sports Authority Field at Mile High in Denver to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the Broncos hosted the New York Giants. The official attendance was 76,721. A giant American flag was spread across the turf behind him.
Taste of Country described his version as understated, calm and steady, sung in his deep voice and country twang. A fan in the stands posted a longer clip the next day.
The night nobody could hear him
Scotty McCreery had stood in a spot like this before. At 18, he sang the anthem at Game 1 of the 2011 World Series in St. Louis. When he began, his microphone wasn’t working, and no sound came through. Once it worked, he sang it through. Some listeners thought he slipped on a line near the end; his label said it was only his Southern accent.
Why the anthem weighed more in 2017
By October 2017, every NFL anthem was being watched closely for protests. On September 24, the Associated Press counted more than 200 players kneeling or sitting, including about half of the Broncos’ roster in Buffalo. In the week before the Giants game, Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote to all 32 teams that everyone should stand for the anthem.
In that climate, McCreery kept his rendition simple.
What he says about singing it
Years later, in a 2021 interview with the Associated Press, he said the song still makes him nervous.
“It’s always nerve-wracking to sing the national anthem.”
He explained that everyone knows the words and will call a singer out for a mistake, and that the crowd came to see the team play, not him.
A Patriots fan in Denver, in a fall that changed everything
McCreery grew up a New England Patriots fan because his father was raised in New England, so he was singing in the home of a longtime Patriots rival.
Nineteen days earlier, he had proposed to Gabi Dugal on Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. Two months earlier, he had signed with Triple Tigers Records after losing his old deal, because “Five More Minutes,” a song he released without a label, had started gaining ground at radio. That night it sat in the Top 30.
After the anthem, the winless Giants beat the Broncos 23-10. By March 2018, “Five More Minutes” became Scotty McCreery’s first No. 1.