Garth Brooks Delayed The 1993 Super Bowl Because They Wouldn’t Play His Music Video Before The Game

Imagine thinking your music video was so important that it needed to be played during the Super Bowl.

The whole thing is a carefully-choreographed spectacle, because the Super Bowl is big money for the NFL and the television network. Super Bowl ads are going for up to $8 MILLION for a 30-second commercial, so every minute of the broadcast has to be carefully scripted and planned out well in advance.

But back in 1993, Garth Brooks threw a major wrench into everybody’s plans.

Garth had already become one of the biggest names in music at that point, with three #1 albums and 10 chart-topping songs in his young career. He was changing the landscape of live performances with his electric shows that were more like rock concerts than anything the world had seen from country music.

So he seemed like a perfect fit to perform the national anthem at Super Bowl XXVII.

But the 1993 game between the Buffalo Bills and the Dallas Cowboys was set to take place at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California at a time when the LA Riots were still fresh on everybody’s minds. Less than a year before the game, the riots had erupted across Los Angeles following the acquittal of four police officers for the brutal beating of Rodney King. And in response to the riots, Garth had released a new song that addressed the cultural unrest.

“We Shall Be Free” was the first single from Garth’s 1992 album The Chase, a peace and love anthem that denounced racism, homophobia, homelessness and a host of other social issues during a difficult time for our country.

Speaking on the song, Garth said it was inspired by a visit to LA for the ACM Awards during the riots:

“The night the riots hit we watched it all on TV on the bus leaving LA. And as you drove out of LA you could see the buildings on fire. It was pretty scary for all of us, especially a bunch of guys from Oklahoma. Ya know this is intense out here.”

And to go along with the song, Garth had released a star-studded music video featuring everybody from Reba McEntire to Mother Teresa. But the video also featured some violent imagery, including flag burnings, riots, the KKK, war and cross burnings.

Well Garth apparently thought the world needed to see his music video, and according to former NFL Executive Director Don Weiss’ book, The Making of the Super Bowl: The Inside Story of the World’s Greatest Sporting Event , Garth wanted them to play it before the Super Bowl.

The country music superstar thought the big audience for the game was the perfect platform for his message of hope, so Garth demanded that NBC run the video ahead of their broadcast of the game.

The network, on the other hand, thought the video was too controversial, and denied Garth’s request to play it for their biggest audience of the year. But Garth wasn’t going to take no for an answer, and less an hour before the game kicked off, he walked out of the stadium in protest, refusing to perform the “Star Spangled Banner” as scheduled.

This presented a major dilemma, because Garth had also denied producers’ requests to pre-record his national anthem performance (apparently he had a different stance on lip-syncing back then than he did during his 2017 CMA Awards performance ), which left organizers scrambling to find a national anthem singer 45 minutes before the game.

Jon Bon Jovi was spotted in the crowd, and the backup plan was to have him on standby in case they weren’t able to convince Garth to come back.

But eventually, NBC gave in. They delayed the Super Bowl for the first time in history in order to make time to show the Garth Brooks music video. And the “Friends In Low Places” singer ultimately returned to perform the national anthem alongside actress Marlee Matlin, who is hearing impaired and performed the anthem in sign language.

Imagine the ego that it takes to demand your music video is played before the Super Bowl.

It seems that organizers learned their lesson though. Since Garth’s stunt, the NFL and Super Bowl producers have required anthem performers to submit a pre-recorded version to have on standby just in case.

All because Garth wanted to make sure the whole world saw his music video.