The Real Reason The Super Bowl Halftime Show Is So Expensive

The Super Bowl halftime show's ginormous price tag isn't about paying the artists. They do it for free. Kind of. After Justin Timberlake's 2018 half time show, sales of his music rose 543%, the same day (via CNBC). Lady Gaga's 2017 appearance increased her digital sales by over 1,000%. And after Madonna's 2012 Super Bowl production, 165,000 fans downloaded her new song, "Give Me All Your Luvin" (via Forbes).

But even without paying the artists, Super Bowl halftime shows cost millions of dollars to put on — $10 million was the number floating around in 2020 before Shakira and J.Lo performed. Their halftime performance blew that out of the water. At least according to what a source told Reuters, Shakira and J.Lo's appearance cost the NFL (or its half-time sponsor, Pepsi) an astonishing $13 million for 13 minutes of show (via CNBC).

What goes into a performance that costs up to $1 million a minute to put on? Part of the Super Bowl halftime show's cost has to do with props. As CNBC points out, the NFL foots the bill for stagehands, band dues, and production costs. Which means that the 300 drones that Lady Gaga used in her performance or the giant puppet tiger and dancing beach balls that Katy Perry needed for hers? Those were things the NFL put on its credit card bill (via BBC).

As the BBC will tell you, viewers of the Super Bowl's first halftime production in 1960 were treated to the University of Arizona Symphonic Marching Band's rendition of "The Liberty Bell." That's it. Seriously. Suffice to say that production costs have sky-rocketed since. That's thanks to the extremely complicated logistics involved in stage assembly, costume changes, and audio. "There are so many aspects of it, the dancers, the lighting elements, the special effects," Roc Nation's Dan Parise, who has produced the show with the NFL, told Reuters. "It's like a big jigsaw puzzle."

To give you an idea, setting up and taking down the halftime show is so complicated that the NFL starts planning it a year ahead of time. Right around the time that The Weeknd performed at the 2021 show? The NFL was working with artists and scouting locations for 2022. Meanwhile, NFL's senior vice president for programming and production Mark Quenzel confirmed to Reuters that an astonishing 2,000-3,000 people are involved in the show's logistics. The most vital of these are those involved in stage set-ups. Thirty-eight 12-person carts are required for the stage. Nineteen six-person carts are required for audio. When rehearsals start, crew members and performers often work 12-13 hour days. All of that, for what is, according to Quenzel, a detail. "It's never lost on us that we're the side show," he told Reuters.