Today, The Rolling Stones will play the halftime show at the Super Bowl. Yeah, it does seem weird, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the NFL playing to the geezer demographic: Mick and crew had seven studio albums, a live album and a compilation album on the racks before the opening snap of Super Bowl I.

Bob Garfield of AdAge had this to say about it: “For them as a band, this is the last surrender to commercialism. Next stop is Hollywood Squares. Any pretentions they have to art are gone and now they are just the ultimate commercialized pop act.”

Didn’t that happen back when Budweiser sponsored the Steel Wheels tour?

Edit: I have been reminded that Jovan spent a half-mil to sponsor the Tattoo You tour in ’81, the first-ever major corporate sponsorship of a rock band.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 5th, 2006 at 10:07 am and is filed under Marketing Stuff.