A Super Bowl Without A Halftime Show?

Could there be a Super Bowl without a halftime show? There seems to be mixed reviews about Sunday's Super Bowl halftime show put on by Beyonce'. Some people have said it was great, while others found it either offensive or non-compelling. There's no question Beyonce' is a great singer, but in my opinion her dancing moves were too sexual for a prime time half time show. I would have been very uncomfortable watching it with my parents - or my pastor. Next year we may not have to worry about it.

Next year's Super Bowl will be held at Metlife Stadium in New Jersey. The normal high temperature in early February in East Rutherford is around 39 degrees. Not arctic cold by any means, but it will undoubtedly be the coldest Super Bowl in history. The New York Post reports it could be too cold for a halftime performance. The post quotes a source as saying "it's not only the acts and singers, but the crews that have to put the stage together." The source says "you just can't assemble the stage and break it down fast enough in the cold." Apparently there is no plan at this point what to do in its place.

Why do we need a halftime show anyway, you ask. It's all about the money. It used to be that we didn't necessarily have to have big time recording artists performing on the field during the intermission. But at some point, other networks, particularly on cable, began programming alternative entertainment to coincide with the timing of half time.

The goal was to lure  television viewers away from the Super Bowl broadcast, at least during the intermission, and to take advantage of a large captive audience. And so it becomes a game of television ratings. If scores of viewers are flipping the channel during half time it could affect the network's bottom line in terms of the revenue it is generating from ad sales.A drop in ratings in turn affects the NFL, and how much money it is able to get from the networks for the right to broadcast the big game.

And so with the big bucks involved, it is likely the NFL will solve the problem of halftime entertainment in the cold. It may not be what we have come to expect, but there will be entertainment. For those  of us who think  performances like Beyonce's are inappropriate for this venue, the cold may be good news. In the frigid February cold of New Jersey, it's unlikely we will be seeing any scantily clad dancers performing at half time- at least not performing live.