With football season officially underway, rumors have already begun to stir about who will be playing the 2012 halftime show at Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis this February. And most recently, the sports website SB nation reported that it would be none other than the original material girl, Madonna, who would take over the field of Lucas Oil Stadium.
NFL is not commenting while Madonna’s representative says there’s “nothing to confirm at this point.” But many are speculating that given that Madonna is to be releasing her first album in over three years in Spring 2012 with a new single to be released this winter, the legendary halftime show, which attracts one of the biggest television audiences in the country, would be some nice promotion for her latest material.
But this is far from the first Super Bowl that has provided rumors of Madonna taking to the halftime stage. Most notably, it was heavily rumored that Madonna would perform at Super Bowl XXXIII in Miami back in 1998, only to have the plans fall apart before a deal was reached. Two years later, rumors swirled again, but Madonna is said to have backed out last minute.
With the exception of the widely-agreed atrocious performance last Super Bowl from the Black Eyed Peas, Madonna would fit with the previous few artists who took to the halftime stage and were all iconic and well-beloved artists like The Who, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Prince.
But she doesn’t always fit with the similar trend of less “risqué” artists and performances that have been found on the halftime stage ever since the Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction back at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. But since she is much older and wiser than the Madonna in her heyday, we imagine she’d be willing to fall somewhere nicely in between risqué and nearly sleep-inducing.