The Super Bowl halftime show is quite possibly one of the largest stages for a performer, with millions of eyes glued to the stage between an epic showdown of America’s greatest football teams. At the moment, Apple Music, the streaming service of the tech giant Apple, is the official sponsor of the Super Bowl Halftime Show. This is the fourth year that the music streaming service has been the sponsor of the famed event, with Pepsi having reigned supreme for the prior decade between 2013 and 2022.
The headline act selections by Apple Music have been somewhat controversial, with Super Bowl LVII featuring Rihanna, Super Bowl LVIII featuring Usher, Super Bowl LIX featuring Kendrick Lamar, and now Super Bowl LX is programmed to feature Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny. None of the choices has garnered widespread acclaim from the public.
Has the Super Bowl Halftime Show Always Had a Sponsor?
The Super Bowl Halftime Show hasn’t always had a sponsor, with the trend starting in the 1990s, coinciding with further commercialization trends in sports, and in particular in the NFL. The first sponsored event was the 1977 “It’s a Small World” show, sponsored by Disney, but it was a one-off experiment.
It wasn’t until the 1990s that the practice became widespread, with Disney sponsoring the 1991 show and the 1997 show featuring a heavy load of Oscar Mayer marketing. During the late 90s and early 2000s, the Halftime Show changed sponsors constantly. The first recurring sponsor was Bridgestone, which sponsored the event from 2008 to 2012. They brought performers like Tom Petty (2008), Bruce Springsteen (2009), The Who (2010), The Black Eyed Peas (2011), and Madonna (2012)
Bad Bunny Excited To Participate in The Super Bowl Halftime Show
Despite criticism, including from President Donald Trump, Bad Bunny is incredibly excited by the chance of participating in the Halftime Show.
In a recent statement, he said:
“What I’m feeling goes beyond myself,” Bad Bunny said in a statement. “It’s for those who came before me and ran countless yards so I could come in and score a touchdown… this is for my people, my culture, and our history. Ve y dile a tu abuela, que seremos el HALFTIME SHOW DEL SUPER BOWL (Go and tell your grandmother, that we are the Super Bowl Halftime Show).”
The league has forged ahead with the decision to have Bad Bunny, an American citizen by birth, as the headline act. This, despite reported disagreement from some league owners, who fear that having a Hispanic singer in the current political climate could entail the rage of the Trump administration and could even threaten the government’s antitrust approval of pending deals between the league and ESPN.
This is actually Bad Bunny’s second Super Bowl Halftime Show appearance, having made a brief cameo in the heavily Hispanic-inspired 2020 edition, headlined by Shakira and Jennifer Lopez, at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami during the Pepsi era.
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