Super Bowl’s first interval show in 1967 featured jazz trumpeter al Hirt and a pair of student martial bands. This year, Kendrick Lamar, the most popular rapper on the planet, will perform.
This evolution shows how much American sports have become a show, with the NFL title game in the center of everything. But even with all this pomp and circumstance, the Super Bowl break was often an event of ups and downs.
In the late 2010, the league realized that it needed to give the show a momentum. Superstars like Pink and Cardi B were refusing the chance to perform because the NFL, although still popular, seemed less and less attractive to the public under 30 years. This occurred after Colin Kaepernick began protests of players around social justice issues, and the league’s response was seen by many as weak.
This led NFL to agree with Roc Nation, a Shawn “Jay-Z” entertainment company to revitalize the show of the most watched Sports event in the US. Jay-Z’s first production in 2020 on fire social networks when Shakira, Jennifer Lopez and Bad Bunny did a show inspired by Latin culture in Miami. The previous year’s presentation, made by Maroon 5, had been criticized and quickly forgotten.
From there, artists such as The Weeknd, Eminem, Rihanna and Usher helped rebuild the show at a time of prominence and attract young viewers that NFL covetous. This year’s Super Bowl, on Sunday (9), in New Orleans, can overcome them all. Lamar has just dominated Grammy and has starred in controversies, including a rivalry with Drake and saying in a 2017 song that President Donald Trump, who should be present, was an “idiot.”
But how long this relationship will last is still uncertain. Both sides have been vacant on what type of agreement is in force. In October, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the partners would continue to work together without giving details. Previous reports said Roc Nation signed a five -year contract of $ 25 million that would have ended last year.
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NFL and Roc Nation refused to comment on their current agreement.
The league is by no means in difficulty. The ratings of their franchises continue to rise. Its TV audience remained stable, while other professional alloys, such as the NBA, have been impacted as consumers move from traditional cable TV to streaming. But NFL needs to continue increasing its fan base, and keep its place in pop culture no doubt help.
Jay-Z has proven to deliver great attractions and a five-emmy award-winning show so far. This helped create expectation among music fans to find out who will be next to perform and led to speculation that Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus are on the list. Swift has already increased NFL audiences with her fans legion tuning when she participates in the games to see her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce play.
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‘Roger Goodell has trusted us, and we take care of it, so anything we present guaranteed that it’s the right thing and the right person,’ said Roc Nation CEO, Desiree Perez, who just said the company is excited about the possibility of the possibility of Swift or Cyrus present themselves.
Trump can play a role in where NFL goes from here. He has a history of getting involved in the sports world. During his first term, he criticized players for kneeling during the national anthem as a way to protest against police brutality and asked fans to boycott the league and owners to dismiss the players who participated.
League popularity has been impacted, with criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Some said they did not support the league players, who are mostly blacks, while others complained that they should have repressed their actions.
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In 2017, a measure of NFL popularity collapsed, according to research data at Morning Consult Intelligence. The league did not completely recover from this decline until this season.
As the NFL brand suffered an impact, the league realized that it needed to change course. Goodell met Jay-Z and conversations accelerated after the Maroon 5 interval show failed in February 2019. In August of that year, the partnership was announced.
During a press conference that year, Jay-Z said ‘I didn’t like the process’ that NFL used to choose Super Bowl artists. According to him, the League interviewed several artists and made a selection. This meant that ‘after three years, nine people are upset and three people performed. There are not so many superstars in the world. You will be without people who want to play. ‘
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The first presentation led by Roc Nation increased the audience of the interval show compared to the previous year. The relationship then proved beneficial to NFL when George Floyd’s murder by police triggered the Black Lives Matter movement. After his death, NFL players asked the League to condemn racism, admit errors in silencing players for protesting peacefully and saying that black lives matter. In NFL social channels, Goodell did what his players asked. By 2020, the League said it would give $ 250 million in donations to combat systemic racism and social justice organizations.
‘We really support them a lot on how we could have an impact,’ said Dasha Smith, NFL’s executive vice president and administrative director.
In the early years of the interval show, the league hired musicians, Broadway stars and university martial bands to collaborate on performance. The age of superstars really started in 1993 with Michael Jackson. In the following years, U2 (2002), Prince (2007), Beyoncé (2013) and Lady Gaga (2017) took the stage.
But there were also fiascos. Black Eyed Peas and Maroon 5 performances were criticized. In 2004, a failure in Janet Jackson’s costume led to a series of more “safe” and older artists such as Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones and Tom Petty.
Probably no show in the range in the era led by Roc Nation had as much expectation as this year. This is largely due to much because Lamar has just starred, possibly, the biggest rap battle in the recent hip hop history with Toronto Aubrey ‘Drake’ Graham’s native. He will also be the first rapper to perform alone at Super Bowl.
‘This puts culture in the forefront, where it needs to be, not minimized to just a captivating song or verse,’ said Lamar on Thursday at a news conference in New Orleans. ‘This is a true form of art, so representing it in this type of stage is like all for what I worked.’
Music fans will be waiting to see if Lamar will make their biggest track Not like US, a song provoking Drake and his partners. Perez from Roc Nation said he has no concern for the rapper introduce her on Sunday.
‘There is a real need for people to feel that they need to tune,’ said Samantha Sheppard, head of the Cornell University Performic and Media Department. ‘Kendrick has only enough gravity for this moment, and in that sense we see Jay-Z’s cunning by making this choice topical.’
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