NFL hopes to have no controversy at its halftime show

For several years the entertainment was more of an afterthought.
NEW YORK (AP) -- With any luck, the National Football League has gotten this year's Super Bowl halftime show controversy out of the way early.
Faced with an embarrassing story that the dancers it was seeking as extras for the Rolling Stones performance couldn't be older than 45, the NFL reversed field and opened it up to everyone. Mick Jagger, 62, may now be able to see wrinkles as he looks out over his audience.
It may seem incidental to the main event, but the halftime show has caused plenty of headaches for the NFL, from Janet Jackson's infamous breast-baring to some grumbling from host city Detroit that its musical legacy is being snubbed this year. The booking of rock royalty like the Stones -- who turned down the gig several times before agreeing this year -- is an indication of its importance.
The Feb. 5 show on ABC is being overseen by NFL executive Charles Coplin. He's a former ABC Sports producer who joined the league's front office in 2001 and took over the entertainment staff immediately after the 2004 unexpected exposure of Jackson's nipple jewelry.
That incident, after the NFL had largely handed over production of the show to MTV, persuaded the league to take a tighter grip on the plans, Coplin said.
Guiding philosophy
"The guiding philosophy is to be unique, entertaining and appropriate, to cast entertainment that serves as wide a group as possible -- from grandparents to grandkids," he said.
For several years, halftime entertainment was an afterthought: the Florida A & amp;M University marching band has not one, but two, Super Bowl performances on its r & eacute;sum & eacute;. The shows gradually expanded, although acts like Up with People defined white bread.
Key years in making it more of an event were Michael Jackson performing with 3,500 children (1993) and U2's Bono opening his jacket to reveal an American flag stitched in, a few months after the terrorist attacks.
"There was a point in the early 1990s where (the NFL) thought, 'how can we make something this great even better,"' Coplin said. "There was a decision internally to look at all aspects of the Super Bowl presentation."
Money-making opportunity
It was another opportunity to make money, too. Sprint paid the NFL a record $12 million to be sponsor of this year's halftime show, and is running a contest to fly the winners to Detroit to see the Stones up close.
Each year's TV audience generally approaches 90 million people. Usually only the Academy Awards comes anywhere close in pulling that many people together.
Along with the Oscars -- where the world's best actors read forced patter from cue cards -- the Super Bowl halftime show is such a cheesy anachronism that it's a wonder it made it intact into the 21st century, said Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University.
"It reminds me of a broadcast of Miss America or Bob Barker on 'The Price is Right,' one of those things where nothing seems to change," he said. "It's a land that time forgot."
Yet the way Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction became such a huge story shows the power of the platform, he said.
Is a football league the right entity to put on such an important entertainment show? Coplin said that's a subjective question. The NFL turns to others -- this year veteran awards show and special events producer Don Mischer -- to help run things.
"We're not so myopic to think that we can't seek outside help," he said. "And that's what we do."
The times the NFL were most burned actually came when it placed too much faith in outside help: MTV, in Jackson's year, and a company that was hired this year to organize the on-field dancers for the Stones.