All he does is win! Billboard can exclusively announce that Ludacris is joining Chris Stapleton and Cindy Blackman Santana for Monday Night Football‘s signature opening with Phil Collins’ iconic 1981 hit “In the Air Tonight.”
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“The second you hear that song, you know something big is coming,” Luda tells Billboard. “Teaming up with Chris and Cindy to bring a new energy to Monday Night Football was a lot of fun, and I can’t wait for fans to experience it.”
In the new opening for Monday Night Football, Stapleton and Blackman Santana roll up together in a vehicle as a stage shows off her drum set and the country star’s silhouette. A hand then takes the mic. “Monday night magic/ Closing out the weekend/ Luda on the mic/ It’s football season!” the rapper-actor — who currently boasts 18 Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hits — rhymes to a frenzied crowd before Blackman Santana pounds out the unmistakeable drum fill from “In the Air Tonight.”
“Chris and Cindy have helped make ‘In the Air Tonight’ an integral part of the Monday Night Football experience over the last three seasons,” Julie McGlone, ESPN vp, production and executive producer of the In the Air Tonight project, said in a statement. “Adding Ludacris to the legacy MNF anthem brings a new dimension to the creative and continues our tradition of celebrating the intensity, anticipation and shared emotion of American sports culture, where music, competition and spectacle come together to make each game feel like a cultural event.”
The new segment will lead into each Monday Night Football match for the 2026 NFL season. This year also marks the fourth football season that the country star and the drumme have reimagined Collins’ Hot 100 No. 19 track for ESPN. They have previously also incorporated Snoop Dogg in 2023.
Watch the new spot below:
The post “Ludacris, Chris Stapleton Reimagine ‘In the Air Tonight’ for ‘Monday Night Football’: Watch” by Anna Chan was published on 09/10/2026 by www.billboard.com