I Loved the NFL Halftime Show, But I Would Hate to Have Something Like That Here
DYOR Dave
While the Rams went home with the choccys in Superbowl 56, the event is already being fondly remembered for the halftime show, which has been overwhelmingly recognised as one of the greatest of all time.
Featuring Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J Blige, upside down 50 cent, Kendrick Lamar, and Anderson Paak (who was unfortunately confined to the drum kit), the show has been praised for its lineup, setlist, production and its wide-ranging appeal.
Naturally, the success has initiated discussions between Aussie dribblers about the potential for a similar show accompanying one of our many sporting spectacles.
How come the US gets treated to the best of their musical exports while we continually suffer through glorified advertisements for Sony artists presented as “entertainment?”
Well, apart from the fact that Superbowl halftime shows are organised by the host city and not the broadcasting network, Australia’s grand final entertainment adopts a drastically different format, and I for one am very glad we do.
For all its generational glory, the halftime show lasted 15 minutes, accompanied by another 15 minutes of commercials. That means the entire halftime lasted as long as two quarters, or half of the entire game itself.
As a player, you might as well have jumped into an ice bath and changed out of your uniform, as you’re going to have to warm up again before the start of the second half, and you can say goodbye to any momentum you felt at the end of the first half.
As a fan, I’d be surprised if you could even recall the events of the first half, with such an extravagant performance that it’s all but outshined the event it was there to support.
I’m not hanging shit on the show, I loved it, but I know I wouldn’t be happy as an NRL fan seeing my game take a lower priority to the corporate interests it serves.
Scheduling the entertainment for half-time ensures that the eyes of not just football fans, but pop culture fans are glued to the screen during the game, forcing them to engage at some level with the actual sport, and more importantly, the ads.
For fans of someone like Amy Shark, they could have tuned in and out of her 2020 NRL Grand Final performance before a single ball has been kicked.
But for footy fans, it means they have the option of either tuning in, and feeding off the energy to add to the anticipation of the game, or tuning out, if the entertainment doesn’t suit their tastes.
We’d all love to see a performance with some of the greatest rappers of all time, but what if it wasn’t them?
What if, in a crude attempt to recreate the glory of this event, we see the NRL roll out Timomatic, Good Charlotte, Troye Sivan, and a Bardot reunion?
As Australians, we’re lucky that the discussions following our sporting events don’t revolve around which brands had the best advertisements, or how good or bad the music is.
We enjoy sport for its own unique artistry, for the heights that athletes reach, and for the miraculous feats they achieve, not for the stage it sets to promote another medium.
In the US, football itself has become merely the pre and post-show entertainment for the musical acts at halftime, or Wayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson yelling into the microphone.
In years to come, people won’t remember the defensive error of Bengals Cornerback Eli Apple that lead to the game-winning touchdown for the Rams in the last minutes, they’ll remember the halftime show.
Not many people give too much credit to the NRL for their organisation of grand final events, but the fact that it stays out of the way of the actual match
The NRL has had mixed success in booking musical performances (check out my rankings of every performance since 2000), but for all their failures, it didn’t matter, because we came there for the footy, and each time we were treated to a game that rivaled the best of any artistic performance, the art of Rugby League.
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