ESPN brings back Williams, iconic ‘MNF’ song
ESPN is bringing NASHVILLE Hank Williams Jr. — and all his rowdy friends — back into the
Monday Night Football fold, six years after the cable sports network parted ways with the brash country singer because of his controversial remarks involving then-president Barack Obama.
Williams’ new version of All My Rowdy Friends Are Here on
Monday Night, with his trademark opening, “Are you ready for some football?” will premiere before the Sept. 11 season opener between the New Orleans Saints and the Minnesota Vikings.
“I think it’s a return to our past in that it’s such an iconic song associated with football,” said Stephanie Druley, ESPN’s senior vice president of events and studio production.
“It was the original,” Druley said. “It belongs to Monday Night
Football. It really is about returning to what fans know. It’s a Mon- day night party, and that’s what we’re all hoping to get back to.”
The music video, which will air during ESPN’s Monday Night
Football each week, was filmed Sunday in Nashville.
For Williams, returning to ESPN is an unexpected homecoming.
“I never said, ‘Are you ready for some football?’ on stage one time the last five or six years, but I will now,” said singer, 68, seated in his dressing room during a break in
filming the commercial. “I’m feeling at home, and it’s a real good thing. It’s my song.”
Williams first performed the song, based on his hit All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over
Tonight, during the 20th season of Monday Night Football in 1989.
ESPN dropped him from the program in 2011 after remarks Williams made about a golf outing between Obama and then-Republican House Speaker John Boehner.
Williams described the outing, famously dubbed “the golf summit,” as “one of the biggest political mistakes ever.”
Williams said on the Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends: “It would be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli leader) Benjamin Netanyahu.” When asked on Fox to explain his analogy, Williams said Obama and then-vice president Joe Biden were “the enemy.”
Williams responded to criticism over the remarks, saying he was “simply trying to show how stupid it seemed to me — how ludicrous that pairing was.”
Druley said he was not concerned about a backlash over bringing Williams back.
“I’m sure there’ll be some, but I’m not concerned,” she said. “We discussed it internally, and it was just the right time to bring him back.”
The move to renew its relationship with Williams comes amid a tumultuous period at ESPN.
Several high-profile on-air personalities, including Trent Dilfer and Jayson Stark, were among those laid off from the network in a round of cuts in April that reportedly numbered nearly 100.
Bringing back Williams might be one way the network is trying to get back its mojo as “The Worldwide Leader in Sports.”
“In listening to the recent cuts that I’ve gotten, it’s phenomenal,” Druley said of the new version of the song. “It just immediately gets you psyched for the game you’re going to watch, and for football fans, that’s a big deal. I think people will be really, really excited about it.”