Thousands of fans heading into Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium on Thursday will know the melody before they even know the words.
If you had a-hundred-fifty-thousannddddd ...
Then the payoff:
What would you do? A-hundred-fifty-grand, in ya hand, what would you do?
That song, now a familiar part of Carolina Panthers fandom online, is taking Michael Malloy - better known to plenty of people as Carolina MiC - to Canton, Ohio, for a free pop-up performance at 3:15 p.m. ET on Thursday. He’ll perform on the upper deck of the Pro Football Hall of Fame lot just before the Panthers open the preseason against the Arizona Cardinals, with the Hall of Fame’s days-long celebration leading toward the Class of 2026 induction that includes Luke Kuechly.
For Malloy, the Canton stop is another strange and very real chapter in a run that started with a song he once had no reason to believe would catch fire.
“Probably winter of last year, the Hall of Fame reached on socials,” Malloy said. “They were like, ‘Hey, we noticed your videos and wondered if you wanted to do a collab or anything like that.’
And I was like, ‘Uhhh, yeah!’ And this was before they announced Luke was getting inducted.”
He said the Hall later asked whether he wanted to come visit and “do a little something” before the game. His answer was simple: “Heck, yeah.”
That kind of invitation only makes sense for someone whose online rise has been fueled by one very specific piece of Panthers-inflected music. The viral run of “If You Had $150,000” has carried Malloy from the internet to live stages all over the place, including a Panthers game at Bank of America Stadium, halftime of the men’s basketball ACC Championship game in Charlotte, and even “America’s Got Talent” on national television.
The song didn’t start out as a runaway hit. Malloy, 52, grew up in Camden, South Carolina, spent two years at Furman University before joining the Marine Corps, and served four years with the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing Band at Cherry Point MCAS.
Music was already part of his life. After later moving to Minneapolis and working a string of day jobs - including his current role as an IT administrator - he kept singing, connected with local bands, and even released a song in 2018.
Then, in 2023, a friend pushed him toward a challenge: the trend of performing 30 songs in 30 days.
So he did it.
The “$150K song” ended up as the second one he created. At first, it didn’t go anywhere.
Malloy posted it on his platforms that year, and it failed to catch on. The turn came on July 4, 2025, when he put up a video that changed the trajectory.
In the clip, he wore long khaki shorts and a Process Blue polo, with Panthers memorabilia behind him, and flung Monopoly money into the air as the refrain hit.
That version spread. Reddit picked it up.
His YouTube audience grew. He stretched the song with a second verse that added Panthers references.
Then the momentum kept building: Roaring Riot invited him to one of its tailgates, and that same weekend the Panthers brought him onto the Bank of America Stadium field between the first and second quarters.
From there, the appearances kept coming. He headlined a halftime show for Clemson women’s basketball.
He showed up at a Hornets halftime. He even opened for Nelly at a private company party, an experience he still sounds almost stunned by.
His “America’s Got Talent” run brought another level of exposure, and he called it “It was nerve-wracking and awesome all at the same time,” he said.
He didn’t win, but he left with a memory that mattered to him just as much: host Terry Crews humming the song as Malloy walked off the stage.
The numbers around his following show how far the song has traveled. He has more than 55,000 followers on Instagram and 29,000 on TikTok, and one of his videos has reached 433,000 views. He’s also got more music on the way, with a single due Friday and an album expected in the winter.
For Malloy, though, the bigger story is what came from staying consistent and leaning into the kind of positivity that doesn’t always come easy online.
“Our time on this earth is so short,” he said. “And so how do you stay positive?
… Well, why even waste one day being negative? Do whatever you can to do the best you can with what you got.
“And if there’s something you want to do, something you want to try, do it. Try it.
Do not wait. Because you don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
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