Kind of like “president trump”, the whole thing is just a giant joke. And major brainfuck at the same time.
It’s fairly common. I think it happens more often than not these days. It depends on the act and the quality of the game but the ratings can spike by a few extra million viewers during halftime.
At this point, the Super Bowl is only tangentially a sports event for tens of millions of viewers who otherwise don’t watch football at all. It’s like Christmas, in that regard.
ETA: Ok, never mind. Apparently, it happens almost every year now, at least according to Wiki
Oh, sure, for a lot of folks, it’s just about the commercials, or an excuse to throw a party even if you don’t care about football, but I’d expect that most of those households would still have the game on the TV, and so would count for ratings for the game.
Huh. And the difference between the two numbers looks to be basically random. Not what I would have expected.
My brain might just be making it up but I recall reading an article a few years back about the phenomenon. There are people who tune in specifically for the halftime show so they can react immediately on social media but don’t bother tuning into the game before that. Sort of a FOMO thing.
I don’t really get it but I’m of an age that I don’t understand a lot of modern culture anymore
I don’t watch football, but I’ll tune in for the halftime show if I like the musicians. Same is true with a lot of my friends.
How do you know when to tune into the halftime show, given that the timing is unpredictable?
Seriously?
-Check on the internet.
-Turn on the TV ahead of time with the sound turned way down
-Call and ask my daughter
That’s just off the top of my head.
It’s not that unpredictable.
The game broadcast (not the endless pre-game show) has started at 6:30pm Eastern for at least a decade, maybe 20 years at this point. The actual kickoff is at around 6:40 or 6:45pm (after the national anthem, flyover, team introductions, coin flip, etc.), and that puts the end of the first half at around 8:10-8:15 ET, give or take a few minutes. It’s not like “could be 8, could be 9.”
If you just want to watch the halftime show, turn on the broadcast a little after 8, and even if you have to watch a few minutes of football (or ignore a few minutes of football), you’ll be sure to get the show.
I just watched it on YouTube two days later.
I don’t generally seek out halftime shows, but this one had a lot of hype and controversy so I wanted to see it.
Yes. Just guess, easy enough to do.
There’s a handy little device. The remote control.
Damn if it don’t work. Don’t even have to call a kid to flip the channel.
And how do you know when to use the remote?
I don’t have needscoffee’s daughter’s phone number.
There’s a website that counts down to the halftime show? Maybe I can get google AI to give me the in-depth AI viewpoint of when it is. It’ll probably be wrong.
Well, that’s not going to affect the Sunday ratings spike.
But this goes back to the discussion of Nielsen families. How many Nielsen families turning on right before the halftime is equivalent to the spike in viewership seen?
I think the cable companies just report on what channel your cable box it on, continuously. For everybody. You know they have that data.
The halftime show happens at halftime. It’s pretty easy to find the live scoreboard including the game clock on the internet. It’s hard to get away from when it’s the superbowl
Ok color me informed. If I’m watching the game, I never check the score on the internet, cuz I’m watching it, and if I’m not, I don’t care. I never considered a middle ground, where I’m home but not watching, waiting patiently just to see the half time show, so I can switch away from Puppy Bowl.
It’s the generation gap. People are on devices literally all the time now, even in their homes and while doing other things - including ‘watching’ something else on streaming or TV. It’s not hard for them to figure out when something big is happening live.
When it comes to free publicity, I think Mr. Rock hit the jackpot. Suddenly the asshole is a household name.
I’m pretty sure everyone heard of the asshole Kid rock well before this. He’s embarrassed himself for a couple decades.
Now Bad Bunny, I have barely ever heard of. If at all.
Or even just make an educated guess, as I posted upthread a bit. The start time of the game has been the same for a long time, and it’s not hard to suss out approximately when halftime will happen.
Once the 2nd quarter clock runs out & play stops, there’s also a few minutes of dead air filled with the game commentators yakking about the lessons of the first half while the stage crew hurriedly gets the performance equipment into place. Then the halftime show starts.
So it’s not hard to get the TV ready before, but not too much before, the music gets underway.
Ref the internet, when any national-level sportsball game of any kind is on, googling for e.g. “Tampa Los Angeles football” or “Yankees Brewers baseball” will bring up a live play by play with scores, yardages & downs or base positions & outs, clocks, etc. Sometimes you need to click a link to get to a continuously self-updating display, other times it comes right up.
If you know a game is in progress, it’s really easy to follow it in real time. And that’s before we get to actually streaming the vid + commentary.
I think there are many groups, including some women, that might prefer a glamorous halftime show to watching football. My preferences are the other way round, but I greatly enjoyed this show and its positive portrayal of puertorriqueños and boricuas. I generally find halftime shows lacklustre.