Move aside, Pepsi. The National Football League (NFL) and Apple announced that Apple Music is the official sponsor of the Super Bowl Halftime Show as part of a multi-year deal. Pepsi had been the sponsor since 2013.
Apple Music’s new sponsorship with the NFL will last for multiple years. The Super Bowl LVII, on Sunday, February 12, 2023, will mark the music streaming platform’s first year as part of the Super Bowl Halftime Show.
The sponsorship makes sense for Apple Music as it competes against Spotify for the most listeners. The announcement also comes as the tech giant invests in sports, signing deals to stream Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer games on its streaming service, Apple TV+.
NFL boasts that the Halftime Show is the “most-watched musical performance of the year.” Last February, more than 120 million viewers watched the Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show, according to the league.
Apple has a long history with the Super Bowl strictly from the ads side, having run commercials during the event since its iconic 1984 spot, when the first Apple Macintosh personal computer was born.
Apple Music is believed to reach 110 million subscribers by 2025, J.P. Morgan predicted.
Apple reported in July that it reached 860 million paid subscriptions across the App Store, Apple TV+, Apple Music, cloud services and its other businesses.
