LOS ANGELES.- Under an umbrella, NFL star Dan Marino sat nearly soaked on a bench watching Prince’s epic halftime performance. Super Bowl in 2007 during a downpour in Miami.
For Marino, Prince’s iconic show was one of the best moments in the history of the NFL championship halftime shows, which once were seen as a boring intermission with college marching bands. Now halftime has become one of the biggest shows in sports with performances by superstars such as Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Madonna, Aerosmith and U2.
The halftime show has come a long way, said the Hall of Fame quarterback, who played 17 seasons with the Miami Dolphins and competed in the 1985 Super Bowl. As an NFL analyst, Marino was also able to have a front row seat at various halftime shows.
“Not many people really see it,” he continued. But now, as we get closer to Super Bowl 58, people love watching the halftime show.
In nearly six decades, the halftime show has transformed from a family-oriented show with patriotic tunes to the largest stage in entertainment with top-notch performers, pyrotechnics and excellent dancers. The 12- to 15-minute performance can attract even more eyes than the game itself, which is typically watched by more than 100 million viewers.
The most watched Super Bowl show in history
Last year, Rihanna’s performance became the most watched in history with more than 121 million viewers, narrowly surpassing Katy Perry’s 2015 show. The audience level for Rihanna’s show is almost six million higher than Fox’s broadcast of the Kansas City Chiefs’ 38-35 victory against the Philadelphia Eagles.
“I think the live element is very exciting for people because it’s a mass production and there are a lot of moving pieces,” said actress Scarlett Johansson, who doesn’t consider herself a soccer enthusiast. But she’s intrigued by the unpredictability of the halftime show, like Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson’s infamous wardrobe malfunction, Lady Gaga suspended from the top of a stadium, and Rihanna’s pregnancy reveal.
Rihanna Super Bowl AP
AP/Godofredo A. Vasquez
You look at it with a kind of nervous emotion, Johansson said. You know that at any moment something could go wrong. That’s why it’s so fun to watch, because you have all this expectation. The production is so big and so many people have come together to create this moment. It’s something incredible.
Kris Jenner agrees and called the halftime show a giant surprise.
“The level of production and the speed with which they put it together when they go to commercial and come back with this fabulous, epic show,” said Jenner, the matriarch of the Kardashian family and star of the reality The Kardashians. Over the years and technology, it gets better and better. It’s very exciting to see what they come up with each time and who’s going to perform. It is a very important thing.
Usher, who last year told The Associated Press that his time with the Black Eyed Peas during the 2011 Super Bowl taught him not to take moments for granted because you only have 13 of them, will headline this year’s show in Las Vegas. on February 11.
Their show will be very different from the first halftime of the 1967 NFL Super Bowl, which featured marching bands from the University of Arizona and Grambling State University, a historically African-American university, along with hundreds of flying pigeons, thousands of balloons and two men rising with jet packs.
evolution
After the inaugural Super Bowl, the NFL continued to bring back other marching bands, training teams, singer Chubby Checker, and Up with People, an organization that stages positive thinking through dance and song performances. However, none of those acts were considered a big draw.
But as the Super Bowl’s popularity skyrocketed and game day emerged as an unofficial holiday in the United States, the NFL wanted the halftime show to grow to that level. The league turned to New Kids on the Block and Gloria Estefan in the first two years of the 1990s. It then saw a breakthrough when Michael Jackson headlined the 1993 show at the Rose Bowl in Southern California, where the King of the Pop famously walked across the stage and performed hits like Billie Jean, Black or White y Heal the World.
Jackson’s stellar performance opened the door for other stars such as the Rolling Stones, Diana Ross, Jennifer López and Shakira, who gladly appear at the Super Bowl.
Michael Jackson Super Bowl
AP/Rusty Kennedy
That’s certainly what changed the course for pop stars and great musicians who took that stage seriously, said Seth Dudowsky, head of music for the NFL. Dudowsky is the point person for all of the league’s music activations and a liaison with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, which has produced the halftime show since 2019.
The NFL manages the production costs and expenses of the artists, who are not paid a salary for their participation, but whose exposure to hundreds of millions of people around the world is considered invaluable.
Dudowsky recalled when Coldplay frontman Chris Martin said that the Super Bowl of music is the Super Bowl. He said the halftime show has been able to grow because of the NFL’s ability to adapt to today’s culture and give deserving artists the platform to express their art.
Some notable examples include U2’s remembrance of the victims of 9/11; Beyonc’s blackness and political activism through her anthem of power Formation; and the first show with hip hop artists led by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg in 2022.
“We really want to start focusing on leading the culture,” said Dudowsky, who has worked in the NFL since 2013 and attended 11 Super Bowls. Whether it’s urban culture, what’s happening in the culture in general and then focusing on that so that what we’re doing feels culturally relevant and using that platform so artists can be themselves and show their art on stage. .. We want them to feel empowered.
FUENTE: AP
