According to Variety, U2 will play halftime at the NFL's inaugural Thanksgiving Eve game on Nov. 25, the Rams-Packers matchup at SoFi Stadium streaming on Netflix, in what the league calls "a new NFL holiday tradition." The show follows shortly after the release of "Carnaval De Luz," the band's first album of new material in nine years.
The NFL invented a holiday so a band 24 years past its last Super Bowl halftime could play a Tuesday night game. The announcement says Thanksgiving Eve "has not yet been recognized by everyone as a holiday in its own right," and one game later, it's a "tradition."
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said U2 "don't just perform, they deliver iconic moments audiences remember forever," which is what executives say when they've booked the 2002 Tour for a new revenue line. The halftime slot is now the stadium tour, and the stadium is a football field. The band will stand on the 50-yard line at SoFi, and someone will call it a full circle.
The timing is the tell. "Carnaval De Luz" lands just before the show, so the football game is the premiere and the halftime is the rollout. By the time the turkey is carved, the band will have a new album, a new holiday, and a new audience: the Rams fans who tuned in for the game and left the subscription running.
The league has already run this trick on Christmas Day, with Snoop in 2025 and Beyonce in 2024. This is the next installment of the holiday music video budget, except the holiday in question is a day the league itself admits not everyone recognizes as a holiday.
YOUR TURN: Is U2 headlining a Netflix football game a fall from grace, or is the fall that the NFL had to invent a holiday to fill the slot?
Comments (1)