American football game, Super Bowl LVII final game ended on February 13, 2023. The game was being held on one of Arizona’s grounds, State Farm Stadium. Philadelphia Eagles, who are the National Football Conference champion, were defeated by the American Football Conference champion, Kansas City Chiefs.
Football is a very popular game in America, and so is Super Bowl Halftime Show. It is an American thing or a tradition. Entertainment during the games is a tradition that does nothing but represents an adjoining link with pop culture.
Last season’s Halftime was done by American Rapper Dr. Dre, and this season was done by Rihanna. She was born in Saint Michael, Barbados, on February 20, 1988, and was raised in Bridgetown. She started her career in 2003 at the age of 15 with Evan Rogers and Carl Struken. But it was only in 2007 that things started working out for her. Her album “Good Girl Gone Bad” helped her to gain her well-deserved recognition. She earned her first grammy after her song “Umbrella” came into the market. Since then, there has been no looking back for her.
She has released n number of songs, such as “Rated R” in 2009, followed by “Loud” in 2010 and “Talk That Talk” in 2011, and “Unapologetic” in 2012. She has also won many awards. She has nine Grammy Awards, twelve Billboard Awards, thirteen American Awards, and six Guinness World Records under her name.
Rihanna’s the first female solo artist who has sold 10 concerts at London’s O2 Arena, and she also the one who has fourteen No. 1 hits on Billboard Hot 100 chart under her name. She was also listed in Forbes’ self-made women list in the year 2020 by having a net worth of $600 million.
You would be thinking that she must have earned a fortune by performing in this season’s Halftime Show. But you couldn’t be more wrong.
How much do they earn?
The NFL players indeed earn $2.7 million on an average basis, but the same is not the case with Halftime performers. The truth is that the performers are not paid for showcasing their talent. Indeed, the cost of production related to the show is covered by NFL, but the artists are paid nothing for displaying their talent. They come back home with the same bank balance.
Our queen Rihanna went on musical hiatus and hasn’t given any song after 2016. She only came out of her 7 years long hiatus for Super Bowl LVII. In one of her interviews with Entertainment, Tonight, Rihanna said that she couldn’t believe she even said yes. It was one of those things that even when she announced it, she was like, OK, she can’t take it back. Now it’s, like, final.
If she’s going to leave her baby, she’s going to leave her baby for something special. Said the “Bitch Better Have My Money” singer. In 2020 when Jennifer Lopez and Shakira were performing, they had an expenditure of $13 million which was covered by the NFL.
The question arises here, If the performers are not getting any money from performing, then why are they doing it in the first place?
Why do they perform if they don’t earn money?
The answer to the above question is pretty simple; it helps them to increase their sales. Though they earn nothing directly by performing but with the increase in their music sales, they do earn some money, doesn’t matter if it is indirectly. Justin Timberlake’s sales rose by 534% on the same day, and Lady Gaga‘s by 1000%. Even though the artists don’t need this, they go by their name only, but extra money doesn’t hurt.
But what about back dancers? Not all back dancers are paid for performing at Halftime. There was a time when NFL came under the radar for not paying dancers, and they also called dancers “volunteers.” In 2021, during The Weekend performance, all background performers were in the same costumes, but not everyone received the same treatment or paycheck.
Next year, in 2022, when Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, and Eminem were performing, NFL did the same thing. They recruited “volunteers” in hundreds for 72 hours of unpaid practice. They later said that they had paid a hundred and fifteen dancers when they were reprimanded for their actions by a professional dancers union, SAG-AFTRA.