The NFL Wants Bruno Mars For The Super Bowl Halftime Show, Again

Ever since the NFL started bringing in headliner musicians to perform the Super Bowl halftime shows, they have aimed for different artists from one year to the next, without a lot of overlapping. And yet for the landmark Super Bowl 50, which is leaving the Roman numerals behind for a year, it looks like the NFL wants to see a repeat performance from the Grammy Award-winning pop star Bruno Mars.

The halftime show for Super Bowl 50, which will be set in Santa Clara, California, is apparently Bruno Mars’ for the taking if he wants it, as the NFL has reportedly given him the offer, according to EW. As of now, though, neither Mars nor his publicists have responded to the offer, so it’s not set in stone that he’ll actually take the stage. But come on, the Super Bowl is one of the biggest television events of the year, so it seems like this would be a no-brainer, assuming he didn’t have an absolutely awful experience the last time.

Mars took over the show for Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014, where he played hits like “Runaway Baby” and “Locked Out of Heaven,” and later sang “Give It Away” with special guests Red Hot Chili Peppers. (That band took some online flak for jamming on instruments that weren’t plugged into anything.) I’m pretty sure as soon as “Uptown Funk” became the most ubiquitous song of the past year, everyone involved with putting the Super Bowl halftime show together smacked their foreheads and sent out mass emails that said, “We gotta get this shit on stage!” Now we want to know what rock band they’re going to get to play with him. My money is on Foo Fighters.

You can check out Mars’ performance from Super Bowl XLVIII below.

We have a few questions. If he takes the gig, will Mars also utilize a pair of sharks in his performance, as Katy Perry did last year? If he doesn’t take it, will they go after Pharrell instead? And if neither of those guys take it, can we get Key and Peele to come out with impersonations of Mars and Pharrell?

We’re still quite a few months away from Super Bowl 50, which will be played (and presumably streamed online) on February 7, 2016, by which point they’ll have definitely locked someone down. Do you guys want to see Bruno Mars make a repeat performance?

Nick Venable
Assistant Managing Editor

Nick is a Cajun Country native and an Assistant Managing Editor with a focus on TV and features. His humble origin story with CinemaBlend began all the way back in the pre-streaming era, circa 2009, as a freelancing DVD reviewer and TV recapper.  Nick leapfrogged over to the small screen to cover more and more television news and interviews, eventually taking over the section for the current era and covering topics like Yellowstone, The Walking Dead and horror. Born in Louisiana and currently living in Texas — Who Dat Nation over America’s Team all day, all night — Nick spent several years in the hospitality industry, and also worked as a 911 operator. If you ever happened to hear his music or read his comics/short stories, you have his sympathy.