.jpg)
Rihanna, Coldplay and Katy Perry have reportedly been asked to pay to play at the 2015 Super Bowl halftime show.
The NFL is said to have narrowed down its list of candidates for the entertainment portion of the event to the three artists and has approached “at least some of the acts” asking them to pay to perform according to The Wall Street Journal.
If the artists aren’t willing to give the NFL money to play the gig, it is being suggested that they should “be willing to contribute a portion of their post-Super Bowl tour income to the league.” The NFL never pay performers at the event but do cover an artist’s travel and production expenses, and also sources sponsorship.
2014’s Super Bowl saw performances from Bruno Mars and Red Hot Chili Peppers, the latter of whom confirmed after the show that their instruments were not plugged in during their set. The performance attracted the largest audience in the history of the sporting event, pulling in 115.3 million viewers but during the show, many social media users commented that the band’s instruments did not appear to be plugged in.
Bassist Flea explained in a post on the band’s website that the bass, drums and guitar were not amplified or plugged in, but the vocals were. He wrote that the band were offered no other option by Super Bowl organisers NFL, and following careful consideration decided to go ahead and appear at the event in spite of having to mime.
“So, when this Super Bowl gig concept came up, there was a lot of confusion amongst us as whether or not we should do it, but we eventually decided, it was a surreal, like, once in a life time crazy thing to do and we would just have fun and do it… We decided that, with Anthony singing live, that we could still bring the spirit and freedom of what we do into the performance, and of course we played every note in the recording specially for the gig.”
