The biggest question since Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter dropped has been, “Well, what now?” Though she racked up a record number of Grammy nominations for the album, she’s done minimal promo, almost no music videos (besides a single incomplete one, six months after the record came out), and zero live performances. But that will all change on December 25, when the singer serves as Netflix’s inaugural halftime show artist during the livestream of the Houston Texans vs. Baltimore Ravens game at NRG Stadium.
The halftime show will most likely be Beyoncé’s first live performance of any Cowboy Carter tracks, and according to a Netflix press release, the show is “expected to feature some special guests” from the album. (Cowboy Carter features include Post Malone, Shaboozey, and Miley Cyrus, as well as several other country artists new and old.) Beyoncé has famously performed on a couple Super Bowl Half Time shows, and has also previously partnered with Netflix on the Emmy-nominated and Grammy Award-winning Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé (which followed the road to her historic Coachella performance). At this moment, the BeyHive is surely buzzing with hopes that this halftime show—which is, of course, being produced by her own Parkwood Entertainment—might become another concert film a lá Homecoming.
Meanwhile, Netflix has secured the rights to the NFL’s Christmas Day broadcasts through 2026 (the games will also “air on broadcast TV in the competing team cities and be available on U.S. mobile devices with NFL+,” per the press release). With a major get like Beyoncé, Netflix and the NFL hope to kick off “a new holiday tradition” of star-studded appointment viewing. Outside the Super Bowl, the league doesn’t do a lot of big halftime shows. Even the widely-viewed Thanksgiving game, which does invite performers, isn’t met with the same anticipation. (Do you even remember Beyoncé, with Destiny’s Child, doing the Thanksgiving halftime show in 2004?)
The biggest question there is: can Netflix even handle an event of this size and caliber? The NFL games will be the streamer’s biggest foray into live sports yet, but previous attempts have proved the platform isn’t actually that good at handling live events. As recently as this past weekend, social media was full of complaints about the stream of the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight, citing issues with buffering and image quality, among other things. If such issues persist with these NFL games, it’ll be a problem for the football audience, and a major problem for the BeyHive. Hopefully Netflix gets its act together before known perfectionist Beyoncé takes the stage!
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