California: Best Super Bowl Halftime

California – home to most popular Super Bowl 

For many Americans, the Super Bowl is the pinnacle of all sports events, but some watch the Super Bowl only to catch the half-time show. Rihanna has returned to music with ‘Lift me up’ for Wakanda Forever and has now been announced as 2023’s half-time performer.

Exercise experts Fitness Volt analysed Google search data to determine the most popular Super Bowl halftime shows of the past 10 years. 

• The most popular Super Bowl performance of the last ten years was in 2022 
• Shakira and Jennifer Lopez were the first Latina duo headliners and were the fourth most popular
• Coldplay’s performance was for the 50^th Super Bowl anniversary was the second most popular 

Ranking	Year	Performers
1	2022	Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar
2	2016	Coldplay
3	2019	Maroon 5
4	2020	Shakira and Jennifer Lopez
5	2014	Bruno Mars

1.  Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar – 2022 

The most popular Super Bowl was in 2022. It was performed by Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar.

Dr Dre was a founder of Death Row Records, which Snoop Dogg now owns. He later created Aftermath and signed Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent and Mary J. Blige.

Dr Dre was a pioneer for closing the East Coast/West Coast hip hop battle. The Compton native performed alongside fellow Californians Kendrick Lamar and Snoop Dogg. The East Coast was repped by New Yorkers 50 Cent and Mary J. Blige.

50 Cent appeared upside down performing “In Da Club” just as he does at the beginning of the music video, meanwhile Mary J. Blige performed her most famed songs No Drama and Family Affair, along with her signature choreography.

Kendrick Lamar, known for creating memorable visuals, began his bit surrounded by dancers in cardboard boxes each with “Dre Day” written across them in reference to each performers’ connection with Dr Dre. 

The show became the most talked about Super Bowl halftime performance online after 41.39K people retweeted an NFL tweet – the most retweeted tweet ever that includes “#PepsiHalftime”.  

https://www.instagram.com/p/CZ8H6Ino8Sw/?hl=en-gb

2. Coldplay – 2016 

Coldplay came in as the second most popular Super Bowl half time performer of the last ten years. The band performed in 2016 and it was the 50^th anniversary of the Football League.

The show started with the intro to “Yellow” before going into “Viva la Vida”. A marching band joined the band for “Paradise”, before Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson came out with “Uptown Funk”. Beyoncé followed with “Formation” and then the three acts performed together to end the show.

They were headlining but had appearances from two former half time performers; Beyoncé and Bruno Mars. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BBgermQPCpC/?hl=en

3. Maroon 5 – 2019 

The band were the third most popular Super Bowl half time act of the last ten years. After the band’s frontman, Adam Levine, stated that Hip Hop and RnB were “where all the exciting things in music are happening”, Maroon 5 were accompanied on stage by Hip Hop artists Travis Scott and Big Boi. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtcSHg3g3ge/?hl=en

4. Shakira and Jennifer Lopez – 2020 

The pair were the fourth most popular Super Bowl half time performers of the past ten years. Shakira and Jennifer Lopez made history making them the first Latina duo to headline the show.

They were accompanied by fellow Latino performers J Balvin and Bad Bunny. 

The official NFL video of the performance on YouTube has since garnered 262M views – the most views of the top five most popular Halftime shows. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8XALoBAFD9/

5. Bruno Mars – 2014 

Rounding out the top five of the last 10 Super Bowl half time performers is Bruno Mars. He headlined the show and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers were special guests. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/jEpMf3O8xC/

A spokesperson for Fitness Volt said: “When Rihanna was announced as this year’s headliner there was a great buzz online. 

“She’ll be the first solo female headliner for many years, and with her following it will be great to see how the popularity of her performance will compare to those mentioned above.” 

METHODOLOGY 

Google Trends data was acquired for the year leading up to each Super Bowl from 2013 – 2023, using a range of search terms including “super bowl halftime”. The search volume for the terms were summed to determine the total interest in the Super Bowl Halftime were summed to determine the total interest specifically in the half-time show.