Last Sunday, the network aired a spot featuring Beck singing Young’s 1972 classic “Old Man” to promote the Week 4 “Sunday Night Football” matchup between Patrick Mahomes’ Chiefs and Tom Brady’s Buccaneers. Young wasn’t happy about it.
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On Instagram, he posted a shot from his video for “This Note’s for You,” a song about taking a stance against the commercialization of music.
Why did NBC use the song for the promo, and why is Young unhappy about it? The Sporting News takes a look.
Why did NBC used a cover of a Neil Young song to promote ‘Sunday Night Football’?
For starters, the song choice is fitting. The lyrics “Old man, take a look at my life, I’m a lot like you,” feel apropos to the rivalry between Mahomes and Brady.
Mahomes’ career has gotten off to a fast start. He was voted NFL MVP in his first season as a starter; he has led his team to the AFC championship game in each of his four seasons as a starter; and he took Kansas City to the Super Bowl in back-to-back years. Through Brady’s first four years as an NFL starter, he had led New England to three Super Bowl victories.
Brady, 45 and the oldest starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl, certainly is the old man here, while Mahomes, 27, is the up-and-comer whose career start tracks with Brady’s.
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Then there’s how the spot came about. In 2021, Young sold half of the publishing rights to his song catalog to Hipgnosis for $150 million, according to CNBC. The deal gave Hipgnosis copyright and income interests across the world.
Hipgnosis founder Merck Mercuriadis seemed to give assurances at the time that the company would honor Young’s longstanding opposition to commercializing his music, saying the company would make sure to “work together” with Young “to make sure everyone gets to hear them on Neil’s terms.”
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Clearly, Young doesn’t believe he was honored in that way. The image he posted on Instagram, which features a bottle reading “Sponsored by nobody,” came from his 1988 song calling out the use of music in advertising. The title itself, “This Note’s for You,” is a nod to the Budweiser slogan “This Bud’s for You.” But since he sold the rights to his catalog, how his music is used by that company is out of his hands.
Unfortunately for Young, he’s helpless to prevent the damage from being done.
