Favorite Super Bowl Halftime Performances 2000-2026

by Pat Freeman, The Mighty O’Ba

Pat Freeman, The Mighty O’Ba

Those of you that have followed my career over the last 30 years realize that I’m slowly closing out my sports coverage. You can expect a few articles reviewing some of my memorable experiences which include 25 Super Bowls that I have covered. Each Super Bowl features a halftime performer who is given the opportunity to make history in roughly 13.5 minutes. Each of these performances requires incredible coordination to put these sets together and taken apart in minutes.

So far, I have had the privilege to see and interview some of the greatest performers of this generation over the years. Today as I begin to conclude my activity, I wanted to talk about just a few of these half time performances that I have witnessed during my coverage of 25 Super Bowls.

The Los Angeles super bowl, I felt Dr Dre did an incredible job coordinating one of the best halftime performances that I have witnessed. It brought together one of the best collections of artists of this generation’s Hip Hop and R&B cul ture for the last 30 years. Featuring west and East coast contributors with a twinkling of slim shady AKA Eminem. This was no doubt one of the best performances that I have seen.

In 2007, the Super bowl was held in Miami Florida, and it was the greatest musical performance of all my Super Bowls. The NFL had, who I believe was one of the greatest musical talents ever as it is half time performer. In all my years I have never witnessed such a mastery of the moment as was done by the great Prince. All artists give a pre–Super Bowl press conference to speak to the media covering Super Bowl week.

Well not Prince, he gave a mini concert and had media dancing in the aisles. I knew then that Sunday would be more than special, it would be historical. This special Sunday even had the cooperation of Mother Nature as it rained while Prince sang his signature song Purple Rain. This ranks as the greatest musical performance of my Super Bowl Coverage and is still talked about by those of us that witnessed this great musical talent.

Rihanna’s performance at Super Bowl LVII was one of the best choreo graphed performances I have ever seen. She used her catalog of songs to synchronize with a tre mendous group of dancers who I think made his tory. This will go down as one of the hardest halftime performances to ever top.

It is my opinion that Rihanna is in a special category of artists that took over the moment in pure art form of dance and music. The coordi nation of dance and the selected music will make Super Bowl LVII halftime performance in Arizona very hard to beat. Along with American Sign Lan guage interpreter Justina Miles made this my all time favorite of 26 Super Bowls. This performance told a story matched with iconic choreography, and an ASL interpretation to match.