How Johnny Cash Became a Big Winner of Super Bowl LIV
The Kansas City Chiefs walked away with the Vince Lombardi Trophy for winning Super Bowl LIV over the San Francisco 49ers last Sunday, but when it came to the musical performer that saw the biggest boost in revenue during the big game’s highly-anticipated advertising segments, it was none other than The Man in Black himself, Johnny Cash.
Cash’s spoken word essay from his 1974 record Ragged Old Flag was featured in an extended commercial during the big football tilt, and enjoyed quadruple digit percentage gains in sales and streams shortly thereafter. During the two days prior to the Super Bowl, “Ragged Old Flag” had received roughly 29,000 streams. During the day of and the day after the Super Bowl, streams for the track skyrocketed 6,514% to 1.9 million in the U.S. alone. Downloads of the track also spiked 8,253% after the ad, though let’s be honest, not many folks are downloading music anymore. It only took a roughly 1,000 extra streams for Cash to pull off that particular feat.
Even better though, “Ragged Old Flag” wasn’t featured in a 30-second spot for Doritos or Denny’s or some other stupid thing. The song was featured in what boils down to a Public Service Announcement that was composed by the NFL and FOX Sports honoring the American Flag, and featuring medically retired Marine Cpl. Kyle Carpenter—the youngest living Medal of Honor recipient. The 3-minute spot also paid homage to the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Pearl Harbor, the California wildfires, and more. Since the original airing, the ad has now received nearly two million additional streams.
Other songs featured in Super Bowl commercials also received boosts, but none nearly as big as Cash’s. “Selah” by Kanye West spiked 156% in streams after being featured in a trailer for Fast & Furious 9. “Sabotage” by The Beastie Boys was bumped by 139% after being featured in a trailer for Minions. One of the songs featured that didn’t fare as well is Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road.” Though download sales of the track rose 110%, streams of it only rose 5% after the airing according to Billboard.
Perhaps people are all Lil Nas X’d out at this point, but they sure are still big behind Johnny Cash. It just proves that now matter how old, some things remain iconic. “Ragged Old Flag” written by Cash himself was his statement after the Watergate scandal to not give up on the United States entirely, but come together to mend its wounds—a message that clearly resonated with many viewers during the Super Bowl, and a message that still feels very relevant today.
February 9, 2020 @ 10:51 am
Elated to see this post, Trig. It was easily, hands down, my favorite moment of the whole Super Bowl. Just brilliant.
February 9, 2020 @ 10:54 am
LIV, not XIL.
February 9, 2020 @ 11:21 am
People aren’t downloading music anymore? I just STARTED downloading music! I also started buying vinyl again, as a way to support the artists, because my bad ears, bad back, so-so location (Washington, D.C., which has some activity, but not like Austin or Nashville), and night-time job make it hard for me to enjoy going to shows (and supporting artists that way).
Serious question, how do people listen to music these days, if not by downloading it? By just streaming, without downloading? Or is there something else going on that I haven’t caught up to?
February 9, 2020 @ 12:15 pm
I think what Trig is saying is the general population has migrated for the most part to streaming. Most of the people on this site are of a different ilk. We download, we buy vinyl, lossless files and yes I still buy CD’s from the artists directly. I personally love to have the lossless files (WAV/FLAC) of everything I listen to so I can play them in my car or on my iPod. Everyone on here has a different system I’m sure. We are not the norm here. As for the Super Bowl………Johnny Cash spot was great. My boy played his heart out and had a successful first full season as a QB but came up short. We’re proud of him here in the windy city and he’ll be back.
February 9, 2020 @ 12:44 pm
I think the numbers behind the spike of “Ragged Old Flag” are pretty telling of people’s music consumption habits. 1.9 million streamed it, and only 1,000 downloaded it. Granted, many others may have already downloaded it, and went and listened to it, but we don’t have a way to track those numbers.
Vinyl continues to climb in market share, but it is still very small, less than 10%. And now with the recent vinyl warehouse fire (Google it), there’s concern this will take a bite out of vinyl for the foreseeable future, which was already dealing with supply side problems.
February 9, 2020 @ 1:03 pm
Thanks to both of you for explaining. I don’t get it, though. I download and buy records so I can listen to this ridiculously beautiful music multiple times. (Listening to Gill Landry’s new one right now, so WOW….) How do you do that if you’re just streaming? Do streamers have to remember which albums or songs they want to hear over and over, or do they just listen once and move on to the next? Are they just listening to songs on playlists or something? Is it possible to track how many times a song is streamed by the same person (or account or whatever)?
Downloading also scratches the itch to collect that was embedded by a youth in which vinyl and cassettes (and baseball cards, lol) were the coin of the realm. Maybe newer generations don’t have that same urge because they grew up differently?
I’m sorry for hijacking this post and won’t keep prolonging the conversation, but I do find the dramatic move to streaming interesting and potentially dangerous, especially if it runs the risk of devaluing albums in favor of individual songs. (Not to mention the economics for the artists!) It seems like the artists covered on this site still believe in the entirety of albums as a meaningful vehicle for artistic statement, but I’d hate for technological and economic forces to create pressure to abandon them.
February 9, 2020 @ 1:52 pm
Based on all the younger people I work with it seems the days of collecting anything may be over. Today’s younger adults don’t seem to have the cash flow to build collections of physical items.
February 9, 2020 @ 2:46 pm
I stream on Spotify for convenience in addition to purchasing music. You can save everything you want to listen to in the app just like you would in iTunes on your phone or computer in addition to making playlists and even downloading tracks for listening to offline.
February 10, 2020 @ 12:28 am
…..provided you are a current subscriber and Spotify still exists.
If spotify increases their prices beyond what you can afford then you have nothing.
Or if it disappears like Microsoft music then you also have nothing.
Admittedly if all your cds are lost in a fire then you also have nothing.
I don’t like streaming, and this year may finally have to embrace buying mp3 albums. Any recommendations on a good site?
February 10, 2020 @ 9:17 am
I’m with JF. You can make things available offline for listening when there isn’t service/you need to save data/, build playlists, collaborate and discover music easily, etc. I do understand that’s a risk if Spotify disappeared tomorrow, so I do try to keep a list of what I’ve got going on. I don’t feel like buying all of it then buying the biggest storage phone to carry it all around (there are services like Plex that let you stream your own library from the cloud though). I do also buy vinyls of my all-time favorites/must-haves.
February 9, 2020 @ 10:25 pm
LIV and let DI.
February 9, 2020 @ 1:50 pm
The Medal of Freedom recipient is Kyle Carpenter.
February 9, 2020 @ 2:30 pm
This is what happens when you watch the Super Bowl the day after being immersed in a music festival for five days. Kyle Carter is the owner of Mile 0 Fest.
February 9, 2020 @ 5:51 pm
Kind of darkly humorous that his music was partially dedicated to the wildfires, hope that was part of the restitution for the massive wildfire he started in CA! In all seriousness, glad it got a little attention on this song! Now we just need Bitter Tears to get back in the national spotlight…who am I kidding, that will never happen!
February 10, 2020 @ 4:07 pm
No thanks to the white guilt music.
February 11, 2020 @ 6:49 am
Love this.
Thank you for this article.
February 11, 2020 @ 10:43 am
Medal of Honor, not Medal of Freedom.
February 11, 2020 @ 1:56 pm
SuperBowl, is that a kitchen bowl judging competition? xD
-Woog