On This Day: 5th February 2012 - Madonna preformed at the Bridgestone Super Bowl XLVI Halftime Show.

The Super Bowl XLVI halftime show occurred on February 5, 2012, at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis as part of Super Bowl XLVI. It featured American singer Madonna, with special guests LMFAO, Nicki Minaj, M.I.A. and CeeLo Green. In 2011, the National Football League (NFL) announced that Madonna would perform at the XLVI show. The singer collaborated with Cirque du Soleil for producing the show, while her longtime choreographer Jamie King was the music director; King in turn enlisted multimedia show producer Moment Factory. Madonna performed a total of four songs, starting with "Vogue" in a Roman-Egyptian setting, followed by "Music" where LMFAO assisted her. Minaj and M.I.A. joined during the performance of Madonna's then-new single "Give Me All Your Luvin'", and she finished off with "Like a Prayer", alongside Green.

Preparations started as early as January 2012, with the singer explaining that it was the most exhausting rehearsal she ever had. The costumes were created by fashion designers Riccardo Tisci, Givenchy, Miu Miu and Prada. Whole performance consisted of 500 total outfits including customized looks for musical guests and assisting performers. The team was allotted a total time of 7 minutes to set up the stage, 12 minutes for the performance and 8 minutes to disband it. The modular structure was assembled from a truck, along with a large white fabric at the front which acted as media screens for Moment Factory. Projection mapping was utilized by video hardware manufacturer Barco, with the films being modified for the spectators as well as television audience. The whole of Lucas Oil Stadium was decked with Sharpys lighting arrangements from Clay Paky, and the performance used Sennheisersound equipment.

Madonna was not paid for performing at the halftime show, which provides global exposure for promotion of an artist's material. The show was a commercial success, breaking the record as the most-watched Super Bowl halftime in history garnering 114 million viewers, the number being higher than the game itself. Keith Caulfield from Billboard reported 1,700% rise in sales for the singer's back catalog as well as strong pre-orders for upcoming releases. Contemporary critics lauded the halftime, but reviewers noted that Madonna was cautious of not causing any controversy with her performance. However, the event received widespread attention when M.I.A. extended her middle finger to the camera near the end of her verse in "Give Me All Your Luvn'", instead of singing the word "shit". The rapper was criticized, and the NFL apologized for their inability to blur out the sequence. The league later fined the rapper a total of $16.6 million as penalty, which was resolved through a confidential agreement in 2014.

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