Each year, the Super Bowl halftime show gives tens of millions of viewers a chance to enjoy an over-the-top musical spectacle. In recent years, as you might expect, Super Bowl performers have seen bumps in YouTube viewership after taking the Big Game stage. In particular, it is the guest acts supporting each headliner whose respective view counts have risen most dramatically.
The information about digital viewership for Super Bowl performers comes from YouTube itself and was shared by Billboard. In three out of the last four years, a guest act has seen a bigger post-game bump than the headliner from the same year. In 2013, the big winner was Destiny’s Child; in 2014, Red Hot Chili Peppers; and in 2015, Lenny Kravitz.
There is, of course, a simple explanation for this phenomenon. All of this increases are listed by percentages, and the performers who have been off the Top 40 charts for several years enter the Super Bowl with a lower baseline audience than the major stars who grab the headlines. Therefore, if performers in both these categories see the same volume of new viewership, it is a sharper increase for the less popular one.
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Still, the Super Bowl’s ability to shine light on an artists who has been out of the mainstream for a while should not be ignored. For evidence, look at Missy Elliott, who earned many new fans after supporting Katy Perry’s 2015 performance.
2017’s Super Bowl halftime headliner, Lady Gaga, hasn’t confirmed any guests who will join her on stage, but whoever those musicians end up being, look for their YouTube viewership to spike. Gaga, as the numbers indicate, will assuredly have a mini-renaissance of her own.
