Jay-Z (Hova) is heading to the Super Bowl stage. Apple Music, the NFL and Roc Nation confirmed he will headline the Apple Music Super Bowl LXI Halftime Show on February 14, 2027 at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, continuing the run that began when Apple Music first sponsored the show in 2023.
Apple Music teased the news with a short video tagged to Jay-Z’s @sc account that declared the “GOAT’s out of the bag,” then followed with a poster calling it official under #AppleMusicHalftime and #SBLXI. The game will air in the U.S. on ESPN, ABC and Disney+, with NFL+ on mobile. Canadian Apple Music subscribers will also get the usual Road to Halftime programming ahead of kickoff.
“From Reasonable Doubt to standing on the Super Bowl Halftime stage, this has been a journey. Thirty years of music, work, and culture on the world’s biggest stage. This run continues to be a dream come true,” said Jay-Z in a statement.
Last February’s Super Bowl LX show at Levi’s Stadium was headlined by Bad Bunny, with Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin as guests. Apple Music’s headliners since it took over the sponsorship look like this:
Those slots matter because the audience is enormous, and the streaming bump is real. Nielsen put Kendrick Lamar’s LIX show at 133.5 million U.S. viewers, the most-watched Super Bowl halftime on record. Bad Bunny’s LX set averaged 128.2 million, still among the biggest ever. After LX, Apple Music said simultaneous Bad Bunny listeners jumped 7x, with Canada among the top countries streaming him alongside Mexico, Colombia and Peru.
The halftime reveal lands in a busy stretch for Apple Music itself. On October 21 the service rolled out a new logo shaped by sound waves, built with Fred Again and NEST Acoustics by filming ripples across mineral oil rather than relying on CGI, plus a heavier lowercase “music” wordmark. Two days later it marked the iPod’s 25th anniversary with a hidden interactive iPod on its 404 page.
While no special guests have been announced, Jay-Z could bring out longtime collaborators such as Rihanna (he helped jumpstart her career), his wife Beyoncé, Alicia Keys (this is hopefully a guarantee) or Kanye West (‘Run This Town’ with Rihanna would be fire) for the halftime show.
Will you be spinning Jay-Z’s catalogue on Apple Music ahead of Super Bowl LXI, or waiting to see who joins him on the SoFi stage?
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