During the Super Bowl halftime show, the football field becomes America’s biggest stage, a once-in-a-lifetime chance for artists to perform a half…
During the Super Bowl halftime show, the football field becomes America’s biggest stage, a once-in-a-lifetime chance for artists to perform a half-hour set for well over 100 million viewers. With an unmatched audience and a legacy of iconic performances, scoring the halftime show slot has always been an elite achievement for artists like Beyonce, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga in recent years. It’s akin to winning the Grammy for album of the year, once a sign for artists that they’re as beloved an institution as the Super Bowl itself.
As the messy lead-up to 2019’s Super Bowl LIII halftime show has shown us, things are quite different this time around, with the confirmed performers dealing with waves of bad press in the weeks leading up to what’s supposed to be one of the most exciting gigs of their careers – proof of just how far the halftime show has fallen as one of music’s so-called biggest nights.
After months of reports that many of America’s biggest stars had turned down the halftime show slot, news broke that Maroon 5 would be performing at the game on Feb. 3. As fans wrote petitions urging the band not to play in the show, the NFL delayed officially announcing the halftime show lineup for months, waiting until mid-January – weeks before the game – to actually confirm Maroon 5 would be playing. And when the rapper Travis Scott recently announced he would be joining Maroon 5 on the stage, he affirmed that he only agreed to perform if the NFL made a donation to a social justice organization, and yet still received criticism for signing on to the show.
More: Petition asks Maroon 5 not to play Super Bowl halftime show to support Kaepernick
2018: Super Bowl LII viewership dips overall, streaming audience sets record
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Months-delayed announcements, angry fan petitions, hard-line charity stipulations – this is not how halftime shows rolled out a decade ago.
