An Inclusive Super Bowl Halftime Show

The National Football League (NFL) has made huge strides in inclusion over the last several years, with a particular focus on racial equity. This year’s NFL Super Bowl halftime show has made another historic move for inclusion - Dr. Dre has added two Deaf rappers, Sean Forbes and Warren "WaWa" Snipe, to join Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, and Kendrick Lamar and sign the entire performance. The NFL worked with the National Association of the Deaf to book the two rappers.

While the Super Bowl pre-show has included ASL interpreters in previous years, this is the first time that sign language interpreters have been included in the halftime show in its entire history. For viewers at home, the enhanced accessibility experience will be available through NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app.

Not much has been disclosed about the halftime performance, but Forbes and WaWa are both extremely enthusiastic about it in interviews. “The doors to accessibility are busted wide open with something like this,” Forbes said.

The 2021 NFL season averaged over 17 million viewers across television and digital this year, the highest regular-season average since 2015. The Super Bowl audience is forecasted to be many orders of magnitude larger, with Forrester estimating that this year’s audience will be between 105 and 119 million viewers. That's up 21% year over year, and the second highest audience prediction in Super Bowl history. We’re excited to see the NFL making more moves to make the entire show accessible to all audiences.

If you’d like to talk about ways to make your events more inclusive, contact us today.