Super Bowl Halftime Show Betting: First Song Picks and Best Bets

Super Bowl Halftime Show Betting: First Song Picks and Best Bets
Super Bowl Halftime Show Betting: First Song Picks and Best Bets

The Super Bowl is here, and that means it is time for our annual gambling bacchanal. With a loaded game on tap and a slate of bets for every appetitive, we need to get ready. Here at SGPN we are looking to bring you picks and best bets for anything that is offered, including betting on the Super Bowl Halftime Show first song! Here is a great guest post from Tyler Bramhall, you can find him on X @The_Brammys so give him a follow and enjoy!

KENDRICK LAMAR FIRST SONG

A little backstory first for the degens. I wanted to work in a baseball front office out of college, and I got degrees in both Statistics and Mathematics. Interviewed with the Oakland A’s and was kinda talked out of working in baseball analytics from people in the business. So, I found a job where I could do math and watch sports all day. I became an Actuary. Lived in CA but moved to Vegas a few years ago and work from home with my own version of God’s Eye in my office.

Anyway my other big passion outside of math and sports is Music. And about 15 years ago, I got so sick of the Grammys giving out awards to musicians that nobody listened to that I decided to just do my own awards. “The Brammys” (it is a play on my last name, not important)

Started doing my own nominees and winners each year and got to a point where friends and acquaintances would submit nominees each year and would ask for who won Brammys that year.

All of this led to the perfect storm of what became my favorite thing to bet on every year, and that’s the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Gambling on a concert during the biggest sporting event of the year, what could be better?

So, using my analytics background along with my own personal music/concert knowledge, I came up with a formula I use every year to select the first song played at halftime. Before I break down the formula, I will mention I have seen Kendrick live in concert four separate times all the way back to the summer of 2012 when he was a surprise guest with Dr Dre. (Really, no excuses not to nail this one).

FORMULA BREAKDOWN

There are three main factors and then a few smaller side factors that help narrow down the choice. The main factors are Song Popularity, Song Pace, and Opening Five Seconds.

Song Popularity: I know “real fans” of artists always think some deep cut is the best song. That’s great, but it ain’t what works for an under 15-minute concert. So, the song has to be one of their better-known songs. Basically, it’s one of the top 3 most radio-played songs off each album. I’d even go as far as to say they would need to be studio albums and not mixtapes or features they were on. Has to be THEIR song off one of THEIR studio albums. Narrows our selection down to about 15ish songs depending on the opinion of “most played” songs.

Song Pace: I will preface this by saying the two times I missed the first song were because artists chose slow songs as openers. So, I have adjusted this formula slightly to include some exceptions to this rule.

The song should be faster pace, something that gets you dancing or bobbing your head right away. Slow build-up songs rarely are openers UNLESS it is some form of an introduction like Next Episode or Bitch Betta Have My Money where they say the artist’s name or catchphrase.

Opening Five Seconds: The song has to be instantly recognizable by the average fan. This means the first 5 seconds could play and stop, and the average fan could tell you what song it is. Some songs have famous choruses or famous lines that may show up at some point, but the first song should have a beat that’s instantly recognizable.

FIRST SONG BETTING PLAYS

Those are the main three criteria, BUT a handful of songs fit that criteria, so there are a few smaller rules to help narrow it further or point towards a song.

Too much swearing is not good.
Anything with a feature is not good.
Anything off the most recent album.
THE most popular song is usually towards the middle or second half of the show. (Hard cuz Kendrick has a few, arguably)
No diss tracks calling someone a pedophile (Not Like Us)
Typically, political undertone or religious songs are not openers or even played at the Super Bowl (hard with Kendrick tho)

All of the different criteria I listed above narrowed it down to three songs. I list them in order of confidence, with 1 being 65%. 2 being 30%, and 3 being 5%.

THE BETS AND PICKS

i
Humble
DNA

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