Jay-Z Reportedly Picks Himself to Headline Super Bowl LXI Halftime Show; NFL Has Not Confirmed

Jay-Z has reportedly chosen himself to headline the Super Bowl LXI halftime show. Puck's Dave Brooks reported, citing multiple sources, that the Roc Nation founder picked himself for the Feb. 14, 2027 game at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, after weeks of deliberation. The NFL, Roc Nation and Jay-Z have not confirmed it.

It is 117 days until kickoff. The game airs on ABC and ESPN, with streaming on ESPN's app and Disney+.

The man who books the show

Roc Nation has produced the halftime show since 2019, when Commissioner Roger Goodell brought the company in after the league's fight over player protests. The deal reportedly pays about $5 million a year and was renewed in 2024 for five more years. Jay-Z has final say on who performs.

His picks since then: Jennifer Lopez and Shakira, The Weeknd, the Dr. Dre-led West Coast lineup, Rihanna, Usher, Kendrick Lamar and Bad Bunny. Puck's sources say Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber were also under consideration and that Jay-Z's own pick had long felt inevitable. TMZ has reported that Bieber and Harry Styles were on Roc Nation's wish list, and that Jay-Z was weighing himself at least a month ago.

He has talked about this before. In 2024 he told Entertainment Tonight that choosing himself too soon would be selfish, then added: "Maybe one year."

The timing is also unusual. The NFL announced Lamar's selection on the opening Sunday of the 2024 season and Bad Bunny's on Sept. 28 last year. This year the search has run three weeks into October with no announcement.

What he brings

Jay-Z is 56 and has not released a studio album since 4:44 in 2017. He is still a live draw. Two shows at Yankee Stadium in July reportedly grossed $42 million in ticket sales, and he reportedly earned $12 million for a sold-out Paris show in September. He has two near-sold-out dates at SoFi Stadium, where sources suggested an announcement could come. This year also marks the 30th anniversary of Reasonable Doubt and the 25th of The Blueprint.

That is a real argument for the pick. He is a household name, likely better known to casual American viewers than Lamar or Bad Bunny, and he can bring out a long list of guests.

The ratings problem

Halftime audiences have been sliding. NBC and Telemundo viewership fell from 135.9 million at the end of the second quarter to 128.2 million during Bad Bunny's performance. That is a 5.7% drop, compared with 4% during Lamar's set a year earlier. Before those two years, Super Bowl audiences typically grew during the halftime show.

Bad Bunny's show also had defenders on the numbers. Apple Music, the NFL and Roc Nation said it drew 4.157 billion views in 24 hours across broadcast, YouTube and social platforms. It won seven Emmys.

The backlash was loud. House Speaker Mike Johnson floated Lee Greenwood as an alternative, and Turning Point USA staged a rival show headlined by Kid Rock. Stephen A. Smith said it would have been nice to hear more English. A pile of FCC complaints went nowhere. Jay-Z went to TMZ at the time to dismiss the backlash as phony.

Fox News sports commentary argues the politics of the performer matter to viewers even when they never show up on stage. It points to Jay-Z's record: he campaigned for Hillary Clinton in 2016, saying of Donald Trump, "He cannot be my president. He cannot be our president." He also called Trump a "superbug" in a 2018 CNN interview and has called America "sexist." The same commentary notes Bad Bunny made no political statement during his set, yet the audience dipped anyway. The writer allows that the NFL can argue an artist's politics are irrelevant unless they surface in the show.

Online, the reaction is mixed. Hip-hop outlet HotNewHipHop reports that some fans see the pick as a legacy move rather than an effort to put on the best show, while noting a broader online campaign against Jay-Z and Roc Nation. One account says Bieber and Cyrus were asked and declined. Puck's account says both were still under consideration.

The structural issue

The core issue is that the person with booking power over the NFL's biggest entertainment slot would be booking himself, under a contract that pays his company. There is nothing illegal about that. But it is a closed loop with no outside check, and the league has said nothing about whether it signed off.

The NFL has handed Roc Nation the keys through 2029. Whether the league is comfortable with this outcome is an open question, because no one at the NFL has commented.

The next concrete marker is an official announcement, which the NFL has yet to make, followed by the broadcast on Feb. 14. Viewership during the halftime window will show whether the two-year decline becomes a third straight year.