Super Bowl LX will stream live on NBC, Telemundo and Peacock on Sunday (Feb. 8), and it’s shaping up to be one of the most-watched events of the year. While the main event is, of course, the football game itself, the Super Bowl halftime show has become a highlight of the night for many viewers.
This year’s performer, Bad Bunny, has been tapped by title sponsor Apple Music to take the stage, and it marks a historic moment for the halftime show. Bad Bunny is the first Latino artist to headline the Super Bowl, and he will perform the majority of the show in Spanish — something that’s become the subject of controversy among some conservative viewers.
Executive Bozoma Saint John knows what it’s like to be inside the process of halftime show planning and all the intricacies that go into the big performance. While she served as head of music and entertainment marketing at the then-halftime title sponsor Pepsi, she played a pivotal role in booking Beyoncé‘s landmark 2013 performance in New Orleans, where the star performed both the national anthem and the halftime show. “I think people take very much for granted that there hadn’t been a black woman performing on that stage since Janet Jackson, and that had been ten years,” she explains.
The halftime show has evolved a lot since then. When Beyoncé took the stage in 2013, the coveted slot was largely given to older superstars like Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney and Madonna. However, the 2010s marked a time of change for the halftime show, making it a more pop-forward and current selection of acts. The following year, Saint John’s team picked Bruno Mars, which she counts as another highlight of her Pepsi tenure.
In the show’s current iteration, it has evolved once again, thanks to the involvement of Roc Nation, starting in 2019, and Apple Music as the title sponsor. Now, it’s much more common to see acts from hip-hop, R&B and Latin on the big stage. With Usher, Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar and Bad Bunny selected in recent years, the halftime show now serves as a way to reach out to new, global audiences, helping expand the game’s reach beyond traditional football fans.
On the latest episode of Billboard’s On the Record podcast, Saint John explains what it means to be a title sponsor for the halftime show, how music plays a role as “cultural ambassador” at the big game and why Beyoncé’s turn on the stage will go down in Super Bowl history.
Watch the full episode below, or find it on Spotify, YouTube and Apple Podcasts.
Let’s talk about how you booked Beyoncé back in 2013 while you were at Pepsi. How does one book a star of that caliber?
When [Pepsi] was doing the deal with the NFL, one of the things that impressed me was that the NFL was open to our suggestion on who the halftime performer should be. I think what people don’t realize is that this is a 360 deal. It’s not just that they are the artist who is performing on the Super Bowl halftime show, they’re also in your commercials. They’re promoting whatever product it is you have. They’re doing the off-the-field entertainment. They’re doing meet-and-greets. It’s a huge, huge commitment…on top of the fact that [Pepsi was] also going to put the artist’s face on a billion cans that year.
There’s a lot to coordinate there. Obviously, I can’t take all the credit because there were hundreds of people working on this campaign, but I think my understanding of pop culture and the relationship I already built with Beyoncé and her mom and her team [from years ago when she booked Beyoncé for a commercial] was helpful.
You mentioned the laundry list of things that a halftime performer has to do as part of the contract. I want to know more about that. What are some of the negotiations the performer goes through that viewers might not expect?
I think every negotiation is a little bit of a push and pull, right? It’s like, what do you want? What do I want? So, a lot of times, what artists will also do is make sure that a project they are trying to push is coming out around the same time, because this is such a [marketing] engine.
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The thing is, the halftime show performance is about 13 minutes long. And while you’re on stage, yes, of course, people are watching, etc., but you gotta depend on that marketing engine of the brand to push whatever else it is that you want. And so the negotiation ahead of time is both about what the brand is looking for, because they gotta get their money’s worth out of, you know, having you as a spokesperson. And then on top of it, the artist needs to also have what they need coming out of the event.
Something that a lot of viewers also don’t know is that you don’t get a typical payment to perform at the Super Bowl. Usually, the pay is just minimum union scale. What they do pay for, though, is a lot of the production costs, somewhere between 10 and 20 million. In recent years, acts like The Weeknd have reportedly pitched in money from their own pocket on top of that. Why do you think that is? Have production costs gone up, or are artists just trying to one-up each other?
You have to consider that this is probably one of the largest broadcast stages that exists, even globally, because now we also have the opportunity of social media, so the performance is going to be cut and shared everywhere. And so what you’re thinking is that you have the largest broadcast stage, the opportunity to reach millions and millions and millions of people around the world. You want it to be your best effort. So this is really, like, it’s a Super Bowl for the teams, but it is the Super Bowl for you, too.
Do you feel that the bump in sales and streams that an artist receives after the game makes up for the lack of monetary compensation?
From a marketing standpoint, what you think about this is a long tail. So, yes, you are going to have the immediate boost of record streaming, or somebody purchases a thing that you’re trying to sell, but it is the long tail influence of your performance and your presence on that stage that actually pays out the dividends. Think about all of the deals you can do afterwards, and the way that people will think of you will increase your prominence. That’s really what the benefit is of doing the performance and making sure it is literally the best performance of your life.
What does it take to become the halftime show title sponsor, like Apple Music or Pepsi?
First of all, these are long-term deals. It’s not like you get the sponsorship and you’re in it for one year. When we did it at Pepsi, it was a 10-year deal with options to renew. And, you know, sometimes after 10 years, a lot of leadership has changed, maybe the product has changed, and therefore people don’t see the value in continuing the relationship, which is what happened in the case of Pepsi. I was no longer there. I would have fought like hell to keep it! But, you know, people make different decisions.
I was ecstatic when Apple Music became the halftime show sponsor. It feels like a great fit. You couldn’t ask for a better fit for a music streaming service. The funny thing is, though I wasn’t at Apple Music when they won the bid, I was the global head of marketing at Netflix, and it is little known, but I wanted it when I was at Netflix. That didn’t happen. I mean, it really just made better sense for Apple Music. They are a music streaming service that can promote the music in the way it needs to be promoted!
