Super Reasons For Playing The Super Bowl

An article that ran in the New York Times earlier this week describes the reasons music acts jump at the chance to perform a 12-minute set even though they won’t be paid for their troubles.

Saying results are “often immediate,” the Times mentions Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ Super Bowl performance from two years ago, citing Nielsen SoundScan numbers showing sales of the band’s greatest hits album tripled after the halftime extravaganza.

But this year’s halftime choice – The Who – doesn’t have a new album to sell and only has one date on the books other than this Sunday’s mega game – March 30 at London’s Royal Albert Hall for the Teenage Cancer Trust Benefit when the band will play its 1973 album Quadrophenia.

But regardless of whether a band has anything to sell, it’s hard to pass on 12 minutes of stage time that will be watched by over 100 million TV viewers.

“I don’t think it will sell millions and millions of albums, but it will definitely have an impact,” longtime Who manager Bill Curbishley told the Times. “If you get into people’s consciousness, it helps.”

Although the NFL doesn’t pay the act an appearance fee, it does pick up expenses for the band and its crew, which can often include friends, relatives and entourage members.

Who actually pays all those expenses? Most is picked up by Bridgestone Tires, which has a three-year sponsorship deal for the halftime show the tire manufacture values at about $10 million dollars. As part of the sponsorship, Bridgestone’s name is often mentioned in promotion ads for the event. The company’s customized logo will also appear on screen for about half the length of the halftime performance.

According to the Times article, Bridgestone has benefited so much from sponsoring the halftime program that it wants another three years. While it can’t attribute tire sales specifically to the show, its has seen its market share grow dramatically in the first quarter of the last two years even though sales by competitors dropped during those same time periods.

Bridgestone also claims the halftime show reaches its core customers – men aged 25-54.

“The image of our brand has been elevated as a result of the tie-ins with these major events,” Bridgestone’s president of consumer replacement tire business, John Baratta said.

How did the halftime show get so big? According to the Times, the NFL has sought halftime sponsorships since 1993 when Fox Television aired a special edition of the popular sketch comedy show “In Living Color” opposite that year’s mid-game presentation. Turns out viewers tuned into Fox and “In Living Color” and did not return for the Super Bowl’s second half.

But Bridgestone only puts up the money and does not make decisions regarding choice of performers or content. That’s left up to Charles Coplin, the NFL’s VP for programming.

But even that’s a rather recent development in Super Bowl halftime history, for Coplin has been in charge of picking the music acts only since 2004. That was when the league farmed out the production chores to MTV, which resulted in the famous Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” otherwise known as the nipple clamp seen around the world. With Coplin in the driver’s seat, football fans the world over have been spared another glimpse of nipple, clamps or both.

Click here to read the complete New York Times article.

Click here for the Super Bowl Web site.