Usher Won’t Get a Paycheck to Perform At The Super Bowl, Yet He Will Get Paid
The Super Bowl Halftime Performance is one of the most coveted slots that any musician and/or artist, from any genre dreams of getting because of the large audience the football championship game presents yearly. What they won’t be receiving is a paycheck to perform.
The Super Bowl usually draws more casual fans to the game than just the regular football viewer audience. In part because it is such a big event that advertisers spend millions of dollars for a 30-second commercial spot due to the many eyes that tune into the game. This is also the time of year when the commercials are just as talked about as the game or the halftime show, so, the attention brought to the game isn’t necessarily to view the actual football game.
But, the incentive outside of the large viewing audience works out to benefit an artist who performs at halftime. Sales, music and video streams, and interest in the halftime act rise dramatically upwards once the performance is done.
Forbes reported that after Rihanna took the stage at last year’s Super Bowl, her record sales went up 390%. That also included a 211% increase in the number of music streams from the day before the halftime show to the Monday after.
The previous year in 2022, according to Billboard, the number for the Super Bowl performers (which featured Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Anderson.Paak, and Mary J. Blige) increased for most of the artists. Snoop Dogg saw an increase of 143% and Mary J. saw her numbers increase by 132%. Even Dr. Dre had a triple-digit increase of 108%. Eminem’s went up 39% and Lamar saw his numbers go up 35%.
In a Newsweek article four years ago, the media outlet reported that after Jennifer Lopez and Shakira performed at the 2020 Super Bowl, the streaming of Shakira’s music increased by 230%. Lopez’ was even higher when her numbers increased by 335 percent on Spotify according to the streaming company.
