A little over a month ago, a rumor started making the rounds that Bruno Mars would once again return to the Super Bowl halftime show. It was underwhelming, but innocuous enough. He was fine when he headlined two years ago, and about 115 million people watched his set, so whatever. It’s the NFL. No one expects them to have great taste.
Now, however, Mars’ potential appearance has taken a backseat, with new rumors saying that, instead of the “Uptown Funk” singer, we might be getting Adam Levine and Maroon 5 instead. (Shudder.) E! News is reporting that the band has “had exclusive talks about performing during halftime of Super Bowl 50,” with a source saying that Levine and company are “the current front-runner[s] for the gig.”
If there’s one consolation, it’s that Maroon 5 might not be the only band performing during halftime. With next February’s event being the 50th Super Bowl, there is some speculation that the NFL will want to make a splash and will thus book several acts to perform, Bruno Mars included. Coldplay has also been bandied around as an option, and while those three acts together wouldn’t excite most fans of modern indie rock, they’ll pique the interests of the millions of people who are at least vaguely aware of what’s kind of, sort of going on in music that’s very, very popular.
Lest anyone doubt the popularity of Maroon 5, it’s worth noting that the band currently has almost 39 million fans on Facebook, and that Levine himself has almost 6 million Twitter followers.