It was all so good a week ago.
Weeks ago Rihanna and fans were celebrating when her “Run This Town” song featuring Jay Z was selected as the intro for “Thursday Night Football.”
Well all that celebration ended abruptly when the video of Ray Rice appeared on the net last week. CBS execs decided to pull the song allegedly not wanting to infuriate the domestic violence fire any further by associating the NFL incident with a popular domestic violence victim…. Rihanna.
At the time, CBS Sports President Sean McManus said Rihanna’s own history as a victim of domestic violence was one part of the decision but not the overriding one.
“We thought journalistically and from a tone standpoint, we needed to have the appropriate tone and coverage,” CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus told SI.com last week of the decision to bump Rihanna’s intro, among other features. “A lot of the production elements we wanted in the show are being eliminated because of time or tone.”
It took a few days, but Rihanna is finally responding to CBS’ decision to yank her musical opening from “Thursday Night Football.”
Rihanna took to Twitter writing, “CBS you pulled my song last week, now you wanna slide it back in this Thursday? NO, F*** you! Y’all are sad for penalizing me for this.
“The audacity …”
UPDATE: Well hours later, CBS revealed they decided to go in a different direction with the musical theme, thus no longer using “Run This Town.”
Following this revelation, Roc Nation released a statement to Billboard on Tuesday indicating that
“Run This Town” was pulled by the label, not by CBS. “Due to the misuse and misrepresentation of Rihanna’s name and participation in connection to CBS’ [Thursday Night Football], CBS was not allowed to license and utilize the song ‘Run This Town.’ Roc Nation made the decision to not grant the song’s usage.”
My two-cents: This Ray Rice situation has been botched up by everyone involved. Looks like there’s still learning needed for such sensitive topics. Even heavy hitting sponsors like Amheuser-Busch are frustrated. “We are not yet satisfied with the league’s handling of behaviors that so clearly go against our own company culture and moral code,” the company said. “We have shared our concerns and expectations with the league.”
And how valuable is Anheuser-Busch’s business to the NFL? How about $200 million a year. Trust me, they’re listening now.
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