BagOfNothing.com

And yet I never knew the backstory and how Janet Jackson was originally scheduled to performed but backed out after 9/11.

“All of a sudden,” says Hill, the entertainment world saw the value of the Super Bowl halftime show: “That it gave them a worldwide platform to strut their stuff.” The NFL has never looked back and now reserves that precious cultural real estate exclusively for blockbuster musical acts.

Scheduled to rock the Superdome at halftime of Super Bowl XXXVI, in 2002, was MJ’s younger sister, Janet Jackson. But she pulled out after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Fox’s planned theme for the pregame show, yet another tribute to Mardi Gras, was scrapped in favor of “Hope, Heroes and Homeland.” Before the game—credit for this inspired idea goes to Tagliabue—the Boston Pops played Aaron Copland’s “Portrait of Lincoln.” Narrating, and exuding varying levels of gravitas, were four former presidents, plus Nancy Reagan.

The task of finding a replacement for Jackson fell to the NFL’s top marketing executive, John Collins, who’s now the NHL’s COO. Shortly after drawing that unenviable gig, Collins saw U2 perform at Madison Square Garden. During one of the band’s half-dozen encores that night, the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed six weeks earlier scrolled slowly across the domed roof of the arena. “At first people didn’t know what was going on,” Collins remembers, “and then you heard, Oh, my God!, as they realized. People were reading the names of victims they’d known. It was a heavy ­moment—an amazing ­moment.”

Collins immediately knew the act he wanted for his halftime. Within two days Bono wasn’t just on board with the idea, he was passionate about it. Not surprisingly, this being the cautious, finger-to-the-wind NFL, that enthusiasm was not entirely reciprocated. How would it look, an Irish band commemorating an American tragedy? One TV exec pointed out that a U2 special on NBC had drawn underwhelming ratings.

Not among the handwringers: Roger Goodell, then the league’s COO. “He was all for it,” says Collins. “Roger gets it.” And while Tagliabue had initial reservations, he overcame them. U2 was a go, and the scrolling names would be reprised in New Orleans. The purpose of that solemn roll call, Bono had explained to NFL execs, was to remove the focus from the statistics, the number of deceased, and return it to the individuals.

Stunning in its impact at the Garden, the name-­scrolling was exponentially more powerful as Bono belted out “Where the Streets Have No Name” to an international TV audience. The next day Collins got a note from U2 manager Paul McGuinness: “I almost feel sorry for whoever’s next.”

SI.com