For much of its history, the Super Bowl occupied a rare space in American life as a shared civic ritual. Even people who did not care about football often watched, drawn by commercials, spectacle, and the promise of communal experience.
Yet as American culture has grown more polarized, the Super Bowl’s pregame and halftime shows have become sites of political controversy, cultural anxiety, and symbolic struggle. What happens on that field before kickoff and during halftime now carries meaning far beyond entertainment.
The controversy surrounding the pregame begins with the national anthem itself. Performances of “The Star-Spangled Banner” have long been freighted with political symbolism, but that symbolism intensified in the 2010s as debates over patriotism and protest moved to the center of American politics. The 1991 anthem performance by Whitney Houston during the Gulf War is often remembered as a unifying moment, but even that event later sparked debate when it emerged that the broadcast used a prerecorded vocal track.
The discussion revealed an early version of what would later become common: disputes not just about performance quality, but about authenticity, symbolism, and national meaning.
Those tensions exploded into a national reckoning after NFL players began protesting racial injustice during the anthem. When quarterback Colin Kaepernick first knelt during a preseason game in 2016, he framed his action plainly.
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” he said. That statement reshaped how Americans viewed every anthem performance, including those at the Super Bowl, turning pregame ceremonies into litmus tests for political allegiance.
The halftime show, meanwhile, evolved from marching bands and family-friendly novelty acts into one of the most powerful cultural stages in the world. By the early 2000s, the NFL was booking global pop stars whose performances were designed to generate headlines as much as ratings. With that shift came controversy, most notably the 2004 “wardrobe malfunction” involving Janet Jackson, which ignited a moral panic and led to years of conservative retrenchment in halftime programming.
As social movements became more visible in the 2010s, the halftime show became a space where political symbolism was unavoidable. In 2016, Beyoncé’s performance referenced Black Panther imagery and featured dancers raising their fists in a gesture long associated with Black resistance.
The backlash was immediate. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani complained on Fox News, “This is football, not Hollywood, and I thought it was outrageous that she used it as a platform to attack police officers.” Supporters countered that Beyoncé was using art to reflect lived experience. Beyoncé herself later explained her perspective, saying, “My art is my activism.”
The NFL’s relationship to protest deepened as it struggled to reconcile its business interests with cultural realities. League commissioner Roger Goodell initially distanced the NFL from anthem protests but later adopted a more conciliatory tone.
In 2020, amid nationwide demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd, Goodell acknowledged the league’s failures, stating, “We, the National Football League, condemn racism and the systematic oppression of Black people. We admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier.”
The pregame ceremony has also expanded beyond the national anthem to include performances of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often referred to as the Black national anthem. The song’s inclusion has sparked debate among viewers who see it either as an inclusive recognition of American history or as an unnecessary politicization of a sporting event.
Civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton defended its presence by stating, “Acknowledging Black history is not divisive. Pretending it doesn’t exist is.”
These recurring controversies reveal a larger truth about the Super Bowl itself.
The event is no longer just a football game with entertainment attached. It is a cultural mirror, reflecting unresolved questions about national identity, belonging, protest, and power. The NFL, despite repeated claims of neutrality, curates its spectacle in ways that inevitably engage with politics, whether by embracing diversity, retreating from controversy, or attempting to balance both.
What makes the Super Bowl pregame and halftime shows uniquely volatile is their scale. With more than 100 million viewers, even subtle gestures become magnified. Symbols that might pass unnoticed elsewhere become lightning rods, and performers are transformed into proxies for broader cultural arguments.
In the end, the political controversy surrounding the Super Bowl’s pregame and halftime shows is less about individual artists or songs than about America itself. These moments expose competing visions of patriotism, free expression, and cultural ownership. Whether viewers see unity or division often depends less on what appears on the field than on what they bring with them to the screen.
From the Beginning
When the first Super Bowl was played on January 15, 1967, the halftime show was much more like a traditional football halftime: marching bands and drill teams performing field formations. At Super Bowl I, bands from Grambling State and the University of Arizona took the field, even forming shapes like the outline of the United States, accompanied by trumpeter Al Hirt.
In the early games, there weren’t celebrity performers in the modern sense: instead, the focus was on school and military bands — the same kind of pageantry seen at college football games. The first time a recognizable celebrity was really associated with halftime was in 1970, when Broadway star Carol Channing and musicians like Doc Severinsen and Lionel Hampton performed. This was a nod toward entertainment beyond marching bands, but still nothing like today’s halftime spectacle.
Up with People: The Era of Feel-Good Shows (1970s–’80s)
Up with People was — and still is — a massive performance group made up largely of young adults (often traveling performers and students) doing feel-good, choreographed musical numbers. They were known for bright outfits, synchronized movement, and upbeat, patriotic, broadly themed medleys. Up with People became almost a house act for Super Bowl halftime during the 1970s and early 1980s:
These performances featured large casts, choreographed movement, and songs meant to celebrate broad themes — like Motown, the 1960s, or (in their final appearance) futuristic optimism. Up with People helped transition the halftime show away from low-key marching bands toward something production-oriented and television friendly. The NFL liked that they could control the messaging and keep content safe for broad audiences — so they booked them repeatedly.
But their shows were still not pop music concerts as we think of them today. Viewers often found the performances overly wholesome, overly choreographed, and not particularly exciting — so much so that at least one NFL commissioner is famously quoted (apocryphally or in jest) as saying he “never wanted to see Up with People again.”
First Real Pop Stars
In 1991, boy band New Kids on the Block became the first mainstream pop group to headline a halftime show, giving audiences something closer to a concert than a pageant or marching band performance
Everything changed in 1993 at Super Bowl XXVII when Michael Jackson took the halftime stage in a full-blown pop spectacle. Jackson was already one of the biggest artists on the planet, and his performance set new expectations. His set featured dramatic staging, choreography, costume, and production comparable to a music tour stop. Ratings exploded — Jackson’s set drew massive viewership and proved that halftime could be as big a pop culture event as the game itself.
The Weirdest Halftime Show Ever
For most of its early history, the Super Bowl halftime show existed in a cultural blind spot. It wasn’t meant to be memorable. It wasn’t meant to compete with pop culture. It was pageantry — something to occupy the stadium crowd while the teams regrouped and the TV audience refilled their snacks.
That worked for a while. Marching bands. Drill teams. Patriotic medleys. Eventually, polished, relentlessly upbeat productions from groups like Up with People. The NFL liked safe. The NFL liked controllable. The NFL liked smiling faces and broad themes that no one could object to.
Then came 1989.
At Super Bowl XXIII, the league unveiled what is now widely remembered as the strangest halftime show in Super Bowl history: a giant, field-wide magic act led by a top-hatted illusionist named Elvis Presto. No band. No pop stars. No hit songs. Just oversized playing cards, mass choreography dressed as props, and a cartoonish magician narrating the spectacle in a vaudeville tone that already felt decades out of date.
The show’s official theme — “Be Bop Bamboozled” — unintentionally captured the problem. This wasn’t a halftime performance that engaged America. It baffled it. Elvis Presto strutted across the field as hundreds of performers flipped giant cards, formed shapes, and participated in illusions designed to be seen from the stadium seats. On television, where the Super Bowl truly lives, the effect was even stranger. The scale worked against intimacy. The visuals felt busy but hollow. There was no emotional hook, no cultural relevance, and no reason to stay tuned. And millions of viewers didn’t.
Here’s the detail that turns Elvis Presto from a weird footnote into a turning point: Fox deliberately counter-programmed the halftime show with a live episode of In Living Color — and younger viewers flipped channels in huge numbers. For the first time, the NFL saw proof that halftime wasn’t just filler. It was vulnerable.
The league’s old assumptions collapsed in real time.Up with People had been earnest, optimistic, and musical. Elvis Presto had none of that. It was spectacle without meaning, camp without irony, and family-friendly without being compelling. In an MTV-saturated late-1980s culture, it felt like something from a different planet — or at least a different decade. Elvis Presto wasn’t offensive. It was worse. It was ignorable.
That failure forced the NFL to confront a reality it had been avoiding: the halftime show wasn’t just a break in the game anymore. It was a battle for attention in a fragmented media landscape. If the league didn’t treat halftime like event television, someone else would.
The lessons of Elvis Presto were blunt and unavoidable:
- spectacle without stars doesn’t hold television audiences
- “family-friendly” doesn’t automatically mean engaging
- halftime must connect emotionally or culturally, not just visually
- the biggest TV audience of the year will leave if given a better option
In hindsight, Elvis Presto feels like the last gasp of the Super Bowl’s pre-pop era — the final attempt to make halftime safe, abstract, and non-essential. It failed so thoroughly that it forced reinvention.
That’s why Elvis Presto endures, not as a beloved memory, but as a necessary one. The oddest halftime show ever didn’t just confuse viewers. It changed the future of the Super Bowl.
The Best, the Worst, and the Classic Rock Era
Here’s an annotated list of the 5 best Super Bowl halftime shows in history, selected for their cultural impact, musical excellence, and lasting legacy on the biggest entertainment stage in American sports. Rankings like this are necessarily subjective, but these entries recur on expert lists and fan polls as standout performances.
- Prince — Super Bowl XLI (2007)
Prince’s performance is widely regarded as the greatest halftime show of all time. Playing through an actual rainstorm, he delivered iconic renditions of his own hits and reinterpretations of classics like “We Will Rock You.” The emotional power of his set, capped by “Purple Rain” under the downpour, has been described as “the defining moment in Super Bowl performance history.” - Beyoncé — Super Bowl XLVII (2013)
Beyoncé’s show fused flawless vocals, dynamic choreography, and a surprise Destiny’s Child reunion. Her set demonstrated how the halftime stage had become a platform for major pop artists to assert both musical excellence and cultural visibility. - Michael Jackson — Super Bowl XXVII (1993)
Michael Jackson ushered in the modern era of halftime spectacles. Opening dramatically after a silent buildup, his performance boosted Super Bowl viewership and forever changed audience expectations for halftime entertainment. - Kendrick Lamar — Super Bowl LIX (2025)
Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show became the most-watched in history, blending high-energy performance with a strong visual narrative and special guests. Actors, athletes, and cultural figures joined him on stage, and his production later won an Emmy for music direction. - Rihanna — Super Bowl LVII (2023)
Rihanna’s performance captivated audiences worldwide. Delivering hit after hit, she combined striking visual staging and powerful presence, making her set one of the most memorable recent halftime shows.
Here’s a ranked, annotated list of what many critics, fan polls, and retrospective reviews identify as the 5 weakest Super Bowl halftime shows in modern history (since celebrity headliners began in the 1990s). Rankings of “worst” shows are subjective, and opinions vary, but these entries consistently appear in lists of underwhelming or poorly received performances.
- Maroon 5 — Super Bowl LIII (2019)
Often cited as one of the least inspired halftime performances, Maroon 5’s show drew criticism for a perceived lack of energy and disconnect from the host city’s musical culture. A Yahoo! Style article noted that the performance “left many unappeased — and some calling it ‘incredibly boring,’” highlighting how audience expectations weren’t met despite high production values. - The Black Eyed Peas — Super Bowl XLV (2011)
Frequently listed among the worst, this show struggled with clashing styles and mixed reactions. A review of poor halftime performances described the set as lacking strong musical cohesion, with oversinging and choreography that failed to engage many viewers. The Black Eyed Peas’ high-energy visual spectacle didn’t translate into a critically respected set. - Blues Brothers Bash — Super Bowl XXXI (1997)
In a performance that now seems curiously miscast for the halftime stage, the Blues Brothers headlined a show that many critics deemed irrelevant by the time it aired. One retrospective review pointed out that the act lacked cultural relevance nearly two decades after the original film and suffered from an unfocused staging. - Madonna with M.I.A. & LMFAO — Super Bowl XLVI (2012)
Though Madonna herself is an enduring pop icon, her halftime show with guests including M.I.A. and LMFAO received mixed reactions. Critics cited the inclusion of acts that didn’t cohesively fit together and a moment when M.I.A. flashed an obscene gesture on live TV, overshadowing the musical elements of the performance. A retrospective list notes that the resulting controversy and uneven set contributed to the show’s reputation as a weaker entry. - Up with People ― Various Halftime Shows (1970s–1980s)
Before the modern era of superstar headliners, the group Up with People appeared multiple times at halftime. While not a single moment from the 1990s forward, this selection represents earlier performances that many modern viewers find dated, earnest but lacking in compelling musical identity. Their upbeat, parade-style productions are often cited in historical reviews as among the least memorable or engaging for contemporary audiences.
Here are all the classic rock–oriented Super Bowl halftime shows with the songs they performed on those big stages. These shows took place during the “classic rock era” of halftime programming, roughly from the early 2000s through 2010, when the NFL booked rock legends to appeal to broad audiences.
- U2 — Super Bowl XXXVI (2002)
Irish rockers U2 delivered a deeply emotional set less than six months after the September 11 attacks. Their performance blended stadium rock with heartfelt tribute:
• “Beautiful Day” (uplifting anthem)
• “MLK” (reflective ballad)
• “Where the Streets Have No Name” (anthemic closer)
During the final number, the names of 9/11 victims were projected behind the band as Bono revealed an American flag sewn into his jacket lining, adding powerful symbolic weight to the music. - Paul McCartney — Super Bowl XXXIX (2005)
Legendary Beatle Paul McCartney brought beloved rock and pop classics to the halftime stage with a straightforward, sing-along set:
• “Drive My Car” (The Beatles)
• “Get Back” (The Beatles)
• “Live and Let Die” (Wings rock staple)
• “Hey Jude” (Beatles anthem closing with audience participation)
McCartney’s set drew on his long career and featured full versions of these classics rather than heavily truncated clips. - The Rolling Stones — Super Bowl XL (2006)
The Rolling Stones turned in a classic rock performance in Detroit that leaned into their raw, blues-infused catalog. While complete set lists for the broadcast are less formally documented, performances included well-known stadium rock staples such as:
• “Start Me Up”
• “Rough Justice”
• “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”
The band played with its characteristic energy and swagger, though some lyrics were reportedly toned down for broadcast standards. - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers — Super Bowl XLII (2008)
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers delivered a guitar-driven set grounded in heartland rock and Americana. Their halftime performance in Glendale included many of Petty’s most beloved songs:
• “American Girl”
• “I Won’t Back Down”
• “Free Fallin’”
• “Runnin’ Down a Dream”
The selection showcased Petty’s knack for melody and lyrical simplicity, making for a memorable, crowd-pleasing performance. - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band — Super Bowl XLIII (2009)
The Boss brought high-energy rock and crowd favorites to Tampa, blending his classic sound with tight band dynamics. Their halftime set included:
• “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” (horn-powered opener)
• “Born to Run” (stadium rock anthem)
• “Working on a Dream” (newer material)
• “Glory Days” (audience favorite)
The performance mixed well-known hits with a newer song, giving a sense of both tradition and ongoing artistry. - The Who — Super Bowl XLIV (2010)
English rock pioneers The Who delivered a classic rock medley that showcased their influence on the genre, especially through powerful riffs and iconic choruses. Their 2010 halftime set included:
• “Pinball Wizard” (theatrical classic)
• “Baba O’Riley” (anthemic opener)
• “Who Are You” (signature track)
• “See Me, Feel Me” (from Tommy)
• “Won’t Get Fooled Again” (rock staple closer)
This set highlighted The Who’s legacy as one of rock’s most enduring bands.