Regardless of the potential for rain, snow, sleet, and/or a plague of locusts, the NFL will have a halftime show at Super Bowl XLVIII.
It’ll happen for one very good reason. If the NFL doesn’t do a halftime show, someone else will. And it will be televised on a network other than FOX, which is next up in the three-channel Super Bowl rotation.
That’s precisely why the Super Bowl halftime became an extravaganza. In 1992, FOX (coincidentally) televised a live edition of In Living Color. (The entire show is on YouTube.) And the reality of alternative programming forced the NFL to find ways to hold the audience during intermission.
As a result, the very next Super Bowl on NBC had a halftime show featuring Michael Jackson, 11 years before his sister put on a different kind of show.
So, basically, if there’s no halftime show next year, NBC could unleash a special halftime edition of Saturday Night Live, or something.
So, basically, maybe as an NBC property we should be rooting for no halftime show during Super Bowl XLVIII.