The first Super Bowl halftime show in 1967 featured jazz trumpeter Al Hirt and a pair of student marching bands. This year, Kendrick Lamar, the hottest rapper on the planet, will perform.
That evolution hits at how much of a spectacle American sports have become, with the NFL title game at the center of it all. But even with all that pomp and circumstance, Super Bowl halftime has often been a hit-or-miss event.
By the late 2010s, the league realized it needed to give the show a jolt. Superstars such as Pink and Cardi B were turning down the chance to perform because the NFL, while still popular, looked increasingly uncool with the under-30 crowd. This came after Colin Kaepernick sparked player protests around social justice issues, and the league’s response was seen by many as weak-handed.
That led the NFL to strike a deal with Roc Nation, an entertainment company founded by Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, to revitalize the halftime show of the most-watched US sporting event. The first production from Jay-Z’s firm in 2020 lit up social media as Shakira, Jennifer Lopez and Bad Bunny headlined a Latino-inspired show in Miami. The previous year’s performance led by Maroon 5 had been criticized and quickly forgotten.
From there, the likes of The Weeknd, Eminem, Rihanna and Usher have helped build the show back into a water cooler moment and attract the younger viewers that the NFL covets. This year’s Super Bowl on Sunday in New Orleans may top them all. Lamar just dominated the Grammys and has courted controversy, including his feud with fellow rapper Drake and saying in a 2017 song that President Donald Trump, who is expected to be in attendance, was a “chump.”
But how long this relationship will last remains to be seen. Both sides have been vague about what kind of deal is in place. In October, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the partners would continue to work together without giving any specifics. Previous reports said Roc Nation signed a five-year deal worth $25 million that would’ve run through last year.
The NFL and Roc Nation declined to comment on their current arrangement.
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The league is by no means struggling. Valuations for its franchises keep going up. Its TV ratings have remained steady, while other pro leagues, such as the NBA, have taken a hit as consumers shift from traditional cable to streaming. But the NFL needs to keep growing its fanbase, and maintaining its place in pop culture undoubtedly helps.
Jay-Z has proven he can deliver top acts and an award-winning show with the five Primetime Emmys so far. That’s helped build anticipation among music fans to find out who will be performing next and led to speculation that Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus are in the fold. Swift has already boosted NFL ratings with her legion of fans tuning in when she attends games to see her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce, play.
“Roger Goodell has placed his trust in us, and we guard it carefully, so anything we put forward we make sure it’s the right thing and the right person,” said Roc Nation CEO Desiree Perez, who would only say the company is excited about the possibility of Swift or Cyrus performing.
Trump might play a role in where the NFL goes from here. He has a history of wading into the sports world. During his first term, he criticized players for kneeling during the National Anthem as a means to protest police brutality and called for fans to boycott the league and for owners to fire the players taking part.
The league’s popularity took a hit, with criticism coming from both sides of the political aisle. Some said they didn’t support the league’s players, who are a majority Black, enough, while others complained they should’ve cracked down on their actions.
In 2017, a measure of the NFL’s favorability collapsed, according to survey data from Morning Consult Intelligence. The league didn’t completely rebound from that decline until this season.
As the NFL brand took a hit, the league realized it needed to change gears. Goodell met with Jay-Z and talks accelerated after Maroon 5’s halftime show flopped in February 2019. By August of that year, the partnership was announced.
During a press conference that year, Jay-Z said he “didn’t like the process” the NFL used to choose Super Bowl performers. According to him, the league would interview a number of artists and make a selection. That meant that “after three years, nine people are upset and three people have performed. There ain’t that many superstars in the world. You’re going to run out of people that want to play.”
The first Roc Nation-led performance increased ratings of the halftime show from a year earlier. The relationship then proved beneficial to the NFL when George Floyd’s murder by police sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. After his death, NFL players called on the league to condemn racism, admit wrong in silencing players for peacefully protesting and say that Black lives matter. On the NFL’s social channels, Goodell did as his players asked. In 2020, the league said it would give $250 million in grants to combat systemic racism and social justice organizations.
“We really leaned on them heavily on how we could make an impact,” said Dasha Smith, the NFL’s executive vice president and chief administrative officer.
In the early years of the halftime show, the league booked musicians, Broadway stars and college marching bands to collaborate on the performance. The superstar era really began in 1993 with Michael Jackson. In the following years, U2 (2002), Prince (2007) and Beyoncé (2013) and Lady Gaga (2017) took the stage.
But there have also been fiascos. Performances by the Black Eyed Peas and Maroon 5 were panned. In 2004, Janet Jackson’s malfunctioning wardrobe led to a run of safer, older acts such as Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones and Tom Petty.
Arguably no halftime show in the Roc Nation-led era has had as much anticipation as this year. That’s in large part because Lamar is fresh off arguably the biggest rap battle in recent hip-hop history with Toronto native Aubrey “Drake” Graham. He’ll also be the first rapper to solo headline the Super Bowl.
“It puts the culture on the forefront where it needs to be and not minimized to just a catchy song or verse,” Lamar said Thursday at a press conference in New Orleans. “This is a true art form, so to represent it on this type of stage it’s like everything that I worked for.”
Music fans will be waiting to see if Lamar does his biggest track Not Like Us, a diss song of Drake and his affiliates. Roc Nation’s Perez said she has no concerns about the the rapper performing it on Sunday.
“There’s a real need for people feeling like they have to tune in,” said Samantha Sheppard, Cornell University’s chair of department of performing and media arts. “Kendrick has just enough gravitas for this moment, and in that sense, we see the shrewdness of Jay-Z making this pick topical.”
