List of Super Bowl halftime shows

The following is a list of halftime shows held at the National Football League's championship game, the Super Bowl. While halftime shows are a tradition during football games at all levels of competition, the Super Bowl halftime show represents a fundamental link to pop culture, which helps broaden the television audience and nationwide interest.

In most years since the mid-1980s, the halftime show of the Super Bowl has featured popular recording artists and other well-known celebrities. It has measurably increased television viewers during and after the halftime show. The performance is regarded one of the most-watched events in American television annually with over 100 million viewers in the United States alone. Musical genres over the years have represented a broad range of music types, including pop, rock, classic rock, country, hip hop, rap, blues, and soul. In some years, short skits or drama scenes are acted out on a stage. The performance group Up with People has performed at the most Super Bowl halftime shows, starring in four during the 1970s and 1980s.

According to Nielsen ratings, Super Bowl XLVI halftime show headlined by Madonna in 2012 remains the most-watched halftime show in history, with 114 million viewers or about 3 million more than the actual game. It is listed on the Guinness World Records as the largest TV audience for a Super Bowl half-time performance.

Background
During most of the Super Bowl's first decade, the halftime show featured a college marching band. The show's second decade featured a more varied show, with Up with People producing and starring in four of the performances. The middle of the third decade, in an effort to counter other networks' efforts to counterprogram the game, saw the introduction of popular music acts such as New Kids on the Block, Gloria Estefan, Michael Jackson, Prince, Clint Black, Patti LaBelle, and Tony Bennett. Starting with Super Bowl XXXII, commercial sponsors presented the half-time show; within five years, the tradition of having a theme&mdash;begun with Super Bowl III&mdash;ended, replaced by major music productions by arena rock bands and other high-profile acts. In the six years immediately following the 2004 halftime show controversy, all of the halftime shows consisted of a performance by one artist or group, with the musicians in that era primarily being rock artists from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The show changed directions beginning with Super Bowl XLV by shifting to contemporary R&B, pop and hip hop artists, also allowing for the return of collaborations.

The NFL does not pay the halftime show performers an appearance fee, though it covers all expenses for the performers and their entourage of stagehands, family, and friends. According to Nielsen SoundScan data, the halftime performers regularly experience significant spikes in weekly album sales and paid digital downloads due to the exposure.

History
The following is a list of the performers, producers, themes, and sponsors for each Super Bowl game's show.

Super Bowl XL
For The Rolling Stones, the stage was in the form of the group's iconic tongue logo (first used in 1971 on their Sticky Fingers album). It was the largest stage ever assembled for a Super Bowl Halftime Show, with 28 separate pieces assembled in five minutes by a 600-member volunteer stage crew. The group performed three songs: "Start Me Up", "Rough Justice", and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction". The show was viewed by 89.9 million people, more than the audiences for the Oscars, Grammys and Emmy Awards combined. In the wake of the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy with Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, ABC and the NFL imposed a five-second delay and censored lyrics considered too sexually explicit in the first two songs by briefly turning off Mick Jagger's microphone&mdash;censoring to which the group had previously agreed. However, the choice of The Rolling Stones sparked controversy in the Detroit community because the band did not represent the traditional Detroit "Motown Sound", and no artists from the area were included.

Other championship performances
Shania Twain is the first artist to have performed at both the Super Bowl and the CFL championship, the Grey Cup, having done so in 2002. The Black Eyed Peas joined Twain in 2011, having performed at the Grey Cup in 2005.