The Dallas Cowboys were up big at halftime, and their coach, Jimmy Johnson, wanted to talk strategy in the locker room.
A bunch of his players had other plans.
Years later, star receiver Michael Irvin told sports host Rich Eisen what really went on. While Johnson talked game planning, Irvin said, “half of us, go and sneak out the back to go watch Michael Jackson.”
That was January 31, 1993, at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. Super Bowl XXVII. And the guys sneaking out had a good reason.
Back then, the halftime show was kind of a joke. One year it was a cheerful singing group called Up With People. In 1989, it was a magician dressed as Elvis who went by Elvis Presto.
The year before Michael, the Fox network aired a live episode of its comedy show In Living Color right in the middle of halftime. Loads of viewers flipped over, and CBS, which had the game, watched its audience slide.
The NFL wanted a real star.
A league executive named Jim Steeg pitched Michael’s manager, Sandy Gallin, about 11 months ahead. For about a month, it went nowhere. Then TV producer Don Mischer mentioned that the game would air in more than 120 countries.
That got Michael’s attention. According to Steeg, he asked if the show would really go live “to all those places where I’ll never do a concert.”
His answer, the way Steeg tells it, was “I’m in.”
The league doesn’t pay halftime performers. Instead, the NFL and sponsor Frito-Lay gave $100,000 to Michael’s Heal the World Foundation, plus ad time for a campaign to help kids in Los Angeles after the 1992 riots.
So the lights went down, and the stadium went crazy.
First, Michael seemed to pop up on top of the giant video screens on each side of the field. Those were body doubles. The real one shot up through a trapdoor in the middle of the stage, launched by a machine from his tour that people called the toaster.
He landed in a navy and gold military jacket and dark sunglasses.
And he didn’t move a muscle.
The packed stadium screamed at him. Millions more sat at home, waiting for something to happen, and every second of live TV during the Super Bowl costs a fortune. Mischer, who produced the show, later said he held off cueing the music for a minute and 35 seconds.
Picture that from the control room.
Go ahead and watch the crowd lose its mind while he just stands there.
Michael Jackson – Super Bowl XXVII Halftime Show (January 31, 1993)
From there, he tore through “Jam,” “Billie Jean” and “Black or White.” TV ratings actually went up between the first half and the second, the first time that had ever happened at a Super Bowl. About 133 million people watched in the U.S. alone.
Sales of his album Dangerous reportedly jumped 83% the next week.
But Michael saved his biggest surprise for the end, when a choir of thousands of Los Angeles kids walked out to join him and the whole crowd turned into a giant picture.