Inside the NFL's Global Music Play: How Halftime Shows Are Bridging Football and Fan Culture Worldwide

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Jonas Brothers perform at half time of the NFL football game between Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on September 11, 2026 in Melbourne, Australia.

When the NFL prepared to kick off its 2026-2027 season with an opening game in Melbourne, Australia on Sept. 10,was gearing up for the beginning of his own journey of a season. The NFL's senior director of global game presentation and entertainment, Tubito had an ambitious slate ahead of him: the league was planning its most ambitious international slate of games ever, with its largest group of major halftime headliners taking stages around the world.

So when the Jonas Brothers hit the halftime stage in Melbourne that day, it was the first of what will now become seven major halftime shows the NFL hosts in seven international cities on four different continents around the world, up from six shows in five cities last year, and marking the NFL's major foray into this kind of event, having hosted the biggest stage in the world for decades in the annual Super Bowl Halftime Show..

"We were going to see how that was received, and it was received really well. And so, as the league expands, the idea is to continue to expand with it.

" With yesterday's (Oct. 10) announcement that The Warning would be performing the game in Mexico City on Nov. 22, that expanded slate is now set: the Jonas Brothers played in Melbourne Sept. 10; Pedro Sampaio & Ricky Martin performed at the game in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Sept. 27; Ayra Starr headlined the game in London between the Philadelphia Eagles and Jacksonville Jaguars earlier today (Oct. 11); and Burna Boy (Paris, Oct. 25), Manuel Turizo (Madrid, Nov. 8) and Cage the Elephant (Munich, Germany, Nov. 15) will round out the lineup.

It's a diverse, and global, array of stars, and helps to highlight the NFL's further foray into the live music space, particularly as it expands around the globe. And that expansion is not slowing down. Here, Tubito speaks about the NFL's music strategy, the challenges and complications that can arise from hosting these types of events in venues not specially built for them, and how these performances differ from that vaunted Super Bowl stage.

"Music connects to memory for people," Tubito says. "It's that nostalgia thing. Beyond just the halftime show itself, music plays such a big part in what we do at an NFL game.

"Specifically for the international games, back when we were only doing games in London, we tested out some smaller local halftime shows. And I think the expectation with international fans, especially, is they watch the Super Bowl and they expect that spectacle to be a part of it. So we started to look into growing that.

And for us, there's certainly the entertainment value in engaging the fan and creating that experience in the stadium, but it's also a way to engage the casual fan or someone who's not necessarily familiar with football, which is both helpful domestically but certainly helpful internationally. The music itself and the artists we work with reach audiences that might not necessarily be tuning into a football game, and that happens for multiple reasons and multiple touch points.

So there's the show itself, but also the lead up, whether that is on the artist channels promoting the show or artists appearing on morning news shows where football or sports aren't typically discussed, or even publications likewhere it's more of a music listener. You're now reaching fans who might not typically be tuning into a sports network or a football game.

So the idea is certainly entertainment and engaging the fans first, but it's bringing people in who might not necessarily watch the game, and then when they tune in for the music, they stick around for the game and fall in love with the game as well. How much have you learned from the Super Bowl Halftime Show being so successful over the years, and been able to apply that to to these kinds of shows?

The scale that we're able to do at the Super Bowl is very different. But I think at the core, it's the same. It starts with the artist, and it starts with developing a great idea around the artist's music. So we work with artists that are really looking to lean in and connect with that local audience.

Just as you saw in the Super Bowl Halftime Show this year, music is also about the storytelling behind the music. The days of, "The band just gets up on stage and plays," that's still great, and you love that. But having that story behind it, it brings that second layer to it, where it really connects with people a bit deeper. We have a strategy behind it.

It's not just, "Let's get the biggest name.

" That's not always the answer, especially for these international markets. Because sometimes it's not about the biggest name, it's about the most relevant artist to that market and to that fan base. So it's a bit more local. There's a lot of research that goes into it.

We look at streaming data, we look at ticketing data, we look at the social data. We've got a full team that sits down and looks at, "Okay, what's happening in Rio? What's happening in Paris? What's happening in Madrid?

" And then we start to build a list from there, and then, of course, you've got to get an artist who's willing to perform and fits in the window and all that. But once you do, then it's developing that show. I was in Rio for Ricky Martin and Pedro Sampaio, and the energy in that stadium was like nothing I've ever felt before. It was like a concert.

There's 80,000 people and they're singing the words to the songs, they're dancing, they're having a blast. And I think that's the ultimate goal, is to create that energy in the stadium so that the fans who are there for football are having a great time, the fans who are there for the music are having a great time, and hopefully everyone's having a great time together.

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NFL Halftime Show Jonas Brothers Ricky Martin International Games Music Strategy Super Bowl Global Expansion

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