The Super Bowl halftime show: 13 minutes to forge a cultural legacy before the eyes, ears and cameras of the United States and beyond. Some acts have succeeded, many have fallen short. Choreography, animatronics, stunts, costume-changes, lights and so-on have to be executed at a military-standard. It was Michael Jackson, in 1993, who in many ways created the halftime show as we know it. Super Bowl XXVII, between the Buffalo Bills and the Dallas Cowboys, saw the players run to their respective locker rooms as a sea of staff flooded the field to prepare the stage. It was halftime - the Cowboys were 30 minutes of play from becoming ‘America’s team’, whilst Michael Jackson was 13 minutes of song from moulding America’s most iconic spectacle. Before this, the halftime show was uneventful and unimaginative in comparison to what was coming. Until Super Bowl XXV - when New Kids on the Block took to the stage - the Super Bowl halftime show consisted merely of marching bands. Even after Super Bowl XXV, star-power was severely lacking from the spectacle - with underwhelming headliners to say the least. Super Bowl XXIII’s halftime show, for instance, was headlined by an Elvis impersonator dubbed ‘Elvis Presto’. Michael Jackson, however, was a coup for the NFL and set a precedent for contemporary performance and production values.
Michael Jackson had initially requested a sum of $1 million to perform. However, the NFL doesn’t pay its halftime performers - with the exposure being deemed more than sufficient. That said, given how desperate the league was at the time - recognising that Fox had lured 22% of NBC’s audience away from the coverage to watch a special episode of Living in Colour the year prior - the parties agreed upon a $100,000 donation to one of Jackson’s foundations.
Exposure, as of late, comes from the more than 100 million people that watch the Super Bowl every year. The mass audience equates to a boost in sales - no matter the performance. At Super Bowl LIV, Maroon 5 and Travis Scott’s performance was viewed as painful by many audience members, but they still saw a 434% uptick in sales. The show remains one of the most disliked videos in YouTube history.
Better performances, like Lady Gaga in Super Bowl LI, drove streaming numbers up by 1000%. Gaga began proceedings by casually jumping off the roof of Houston Texans’ NRG stadium - sending the internet bonkers as she flew down to the stage before belting out ‘Poker Face’. Crowd-pleasing, untamed and peculiar; it was still one of the least-divisive performances of recent times. Yet it still didn’t outshine Coldplay’s star-studded show in Santa Clara the year prior. Coldplay are one of the only British acts to have performed in the halftime show, and acknowledged that their foreign playbook was in need of some power. Where to go for that? Beyonce. ‘Queen B’ eclipsed Chris Martin and co. with a 2 minute display reminiscent of her triumphant performance at Super Bowl XLVII three years before, this time with an added flavour of Bruno Mars. Shakira and J. Lo took the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami by storm in 2020: Shakira played guitar hero, J. Lo arrived on a stripper pole, and we all reminisced on the 2010 World Cup in South Africa through Shakira’s anthem, ‘Waka Waka (This time for Africa)’.
For all of the halftime success stories, there have been plenty of blunders and controversies - with ‘Nipplegate’ being undoubtedly the most well-known blunder, as Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake served up a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ for the ages at Super Bowl XXXVIII. Justin Timerlake ended the show by ripping off Janet Jackson’s rubber bustier, and it didn’t go to plan. He was meant to reveal another item of lingerie beneath the bustier, but instead briefly exposed her nipple to an audience of 140 million people.
Roc Nation - a label owned by influential rapper Jay-Z - formed a partnership with the NFL in 2019 as part of the league’s intention to enhance and diversify its entertainment strategy while improving its social justice outreach. The entertainment pitfalls of the NFL, prior to the involvement of Jay-Z’s company, are exemplified by Maroon 5’s Super Bowl LIV show. Atlanta, Georgia is a global centre of Hip Hop, yet the league landed on Maroon 5 - a pop-rock band featuring a white front-man from Los Angeles - to headline one of the city’s biggest-ever concerts to-date.
Since then, Roc Nation’s influence has been evident. Shakira and J-Lo became the first latina’s to do the halftime show and did-so in the predominantly hispanic region of Miami, Florida - putting a spotlight on Puerto Rico while commenting on immigration politics. The Weeknd then rocked the Super Bowl LV halftime show in 2021 - a performance that he reportedly spent $7 million of his own money on - before Rhianna raised the bar to a whole new standard in 2023. A standard which Usher was unable to meet in 2024. Even so, the Super Bowl halftime show remains one of the world’s most celebrated concerts on a yearly basis - with many hoping that Travis Kelce’s relationship with international superstar Taylor Swift will prompt an incredible performance from the 14x Grammy-award winner in 2025.
