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The Super Bowl Shuffle’? Controversy Surrounding Bear’s Willie Gault Led Rap in 1986 Explained
The wildly popular 1985 "Super Bowl Shuffle" rap by the Chicago Bears was marketed as feeding the needy, but poor planning led to years of legal battles over the profits.
In the fall of 1985, the Chicago Bears were an unstoppable juggernaut, steamrolling towards an inevitable Super Bowl run behind their famously ferocious "46" defense. But the team's brash personality and flair for showmanship extended way beyond the gridiron that season.
Wide receiver Willie Gault was seeking stardom outside of football through music or acting. He caught the attention of local record executive Richard Meyer, who proposed making a novelty rap record featuring the entire team to promote his fledgling Red Label Records.
Gault loved the idea and sold his teammates on it by claiming any profits would be donated to Chicago charities working to feed the hungry - "the needy" as stated explicitly in the lyrics. Despite skepticism from players like Dan Hampton, ten Bears superstars including Walter Payton and William "The Refrigerator" Perry recorded the campy "Super Bowl Shuffle" rap video in just a week.
“Shuffle” became an unlikely hit
The project was initially intended as a regional novelty, but it immediately exploded into a nationwide phenomenon upon release in October 1985. Radio stations across the country aired the hilarious rap boasting of the players' prowess through lines like Payton's "I'm not greedy, the needy, are the ones that I feed."
To the surprise of many, the "Shuffle" hit #41 on the Billboard charts and even garnered a Grammy nomination. Over 1 million copies of the single and 200,000 video copies were sold in just the first year. It looked to be one of the biggest pop crossovers in sports history.
Chicago Bear's "To Feed the Needy" Promise Undermined
However, the Bears' lofty philanthropic goals of generously "feeding the needy" with the windfall were immediately undermined by a legal battle over just how much of the profits had to go to charity.
Illinois Attorney General Neil Hartigan got involved, asserting that under state law, 75% of the funds had to be distributed to charitable organizations. But the Red Label Records team tried to lowball that number down to just 15%.
As coach Mike Singletary would later lament with disgust: "It didn't quite work that way. It fed the rich."
Amidst the escalating controversy, the funds quickly became tied up in bureaucratic purgatory. For over a year, the various parties arguing over the charitable percentage stalemate prevented any of the money from actually reaching the hungry "needy" it was earmarked for.
An exasperated Singletary even threw his gold record plaque into the trash, railing "It doesn't represent an accomplishment. It doesn't mean a thing unless it gets food to the hungry people who were supposed to be fed."
The Chicago Community Trust Intervenes
Finally in 1987, the Chicago Community Trust philanthropic organization volunteered its extensive experience to take over collecting and properly distributing the charitable "Shuffle" proceeds to legitimate anti-hunger groups.
The Trust was uniquely suited, with deep knowledge of Chicago's hunger landscape and networks with food assistance nonprofits across the city. It also understood how to navigate the complex tax, legal and regulatory hurdles around high-profile acts of public philanthropy.
The funds went to major organizations like the Greater Chicago Food Depository to pay for refrigerators, trucks and other infrastructure for food distribution networks. Portions also were granted to smaller community groups attacking hunger at the neighborhood level.
Not only had the original charitable vision been muddled, but the players themselves had seen little in compensation despite being the stars and entertainers of the phenomenon. Each received just $6,000 upfront for their rapping roles, with additional merchandising royalties still unsettled.
"We definitely got ripped off...like every other starting band," said former Bear Gary Fencik years later. The players combined to donate an additional $60,000 of their extremely modest profits to hunger charities.
Lawsuits and copyright battles over the “Shuffle”
In the decades since, the sour aftertaste has only worsened with prolonged legal battles over "Shuffle" merchandise profits and creative rights.
In 2014, six players including Willie Gault filed a federal lawsuit against the producers, claiming they were owed millions more in unpaid royalties from wildly lucrative t-shirt and other merchandise sales. That case is still ongoing.
Meanwhile, the "Shuffle" song's owner Julia Meyer - who inherited the rights after husband Richard's passing - has aggressively defended the copyright through numerous lawsuits and cease-and-desist orders. She has gone after media giants like Viacom to individual YouTubers posting unauthorized clips of the iconic video.
"I'm that tiny little stone," Meyer says of her copyright crusade. "And I'm going to be there until you...deal with that stone by hand. Because otherwise I'm not going away."
The fog of confusion, greed and acrimony seems to only cloud the "Super Bowl Shuffle" legacy further with each passing year.
In the end, only about a third of the estimated $1 million-plus in total profits found their way to legitimate anti-hunger initiatives years later than originally promised. And the parties involved still seem to be fighting over the creative and financial scraps decades later.
What started as an innocent, though undeniably self-promoting, bit of fun and philanthropic generosity mutated into a tangled web of controversies over music rights, merchandise profits, and perhaps most disturbingly - how charitable the intentions ever truly were.
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