![]() The NFL has been trying to resolve their PR issues in part via the Halftime Show, especially since the Super Bowl LIII debacle in 2019, when several acts were reported to have turned down the invitation to headline before they settled for Maroon 5. It was at a Super Bowl pre-game press conference that former NFL.com columnist Jim Trotter confronted Roger Goodell about the lack of diversity in the league’s media department, mere months before he lost his job there. But no one issue has marred the NFL as much as racism : its occurrence in the league, how it’s viewed by those in the league, and how the league responds to it. Over the last several years, the league has been plagued with controversy after controversy of any and all kinds, ranging from (but not limited to): bullying, coverups of scientific data, abuses of power, and medical injuries, its mismanagement of domestic violence, harassment and abuse allegations, and settlements and lawsuits because of the aforementioned and many other issues. The Super Bowl’s mainstream cultural relevance is nowhere as insecure as it might have been in the 1990s, but the NFL’s place with supremacy in the American zeitgeist has been. He has at least 18 releases with platinum record sales certifications from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for his own albums and singles alone easily more if you incorporate worldwide certifications, non-RIAA plaques, and/or records he’s featured on (such as Romeo Santos’ “Promise,” which is RIAA-certified platinum 34 times over on its own.) In plain terms, he’s one of the most successful entertainers in history. While no one alive compares to Jackson, especially in terms of global fame and universal acclaim, we can’t forget that Usher is one of the best male music artists of the present day. Jackson’s performance is still considered one of the best Halftime Shows ever, and one of his last great performances of all time. Day as a holiday.) But with the King of Pop on stage, the NFL averted disaster – and in fact saw a boost in ratings mid-broadcast for the first time in history. There were a lot of potential reasons why the NFL faced trouble going into the 1993 Super Bowl (cable networks on the rise, the 1992 LA race riots, that Super Bowl being held in Pasadena instead of its original host city – Tempe, Arizona – because the state initially refused to recognize Martin Luther King, Jr. The year before, the NFL had the closest version of a modern Halftime Show with a Disney-produced show featuring the boy band New Kids on the Block right before the end of their prime – but the broadcast of it was preempted for most viewers by coverage of America’s initiation of Operation Desert Storm, which had commenced just days before in Iraq. When Jackson performed at the Halftime Show, the NFL was desperate to avoid the embarrassment that had happened the year before: Fox, which wasn’t a NFL broadcaster at the time, aired In Living Color to counter-program the Super Bowl XXVI Halftime Show (featuring Gloria Estefan in a 1992 Olympics-themed figure skating display) and successfully beat them in the ratings during that half-hour. There are more than a few similarities between Jackson and Usher – raised as child stars, world-renown for their dancing as much as their singing, endless intrigue into their personal lives – and the timing of their opportunity to perform during television’s most watched broadcast also comes at a similar point in both their careers and the NFL’s trajectory. Now, the upcoming Halftime Show will be headlined by Usher, just over 30 years after that show, which was months before his commercial debut as a music artist. But a more eternally legendary moment came from that game: The Halftime Show was headlined by the one and only Michael Jackson, who was the biggest superstar to ever perform at the time he held the gig (and, arguably, still is, although the competition’s much stiffer) as the most famous people to appear in Halftime Shows before the ‘90s were Anita Bryant (yes, that Anita Bryant) and Mickey Rooney. Yes, that Super Bowl marked the Dallas Cowboys winning their first championship under Jerry Jones. This time may seem close to the present, and largely, it is – but you could have also envisioned the world 30 years in the past, because a lot of these conditions were also in effect in early 1993, by the time Super Bowl XXVII occurred.
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