The performance was successful in its goals, causing viewership of the Super Bowl to increase between halves for the first time in the game's history, with an audience of 133.4 million viewers in the United States.
[10][11] Prior to Super Bowl XXVII, the game's halftime show often featured performances by marching bands, and later drill teams and ensembles such as Up with People—acts that, by the 1990s, were considered to be culturally outdated.
[12][13][14][15] The previous year's halftime show had featured a salute to the 1992 Winter Olympics, with figure skating performances by Brian Boitano and Dorothy Hamill, and musical guest Gloria Estefan.
[16] Future NFL broadcaster Fox famously aired a special episode of its sketch comedy series In Living Color against the halftime period,[17] which caused viewership of the game on CBS to decrease by 22%.
[13][14] Although the league does not pay appearance fees for Super Bowl halftime performers, the NFL and Frito-Lay agreed to make a donation of $100,000 to Jackson's Heal the World Foundation, and provide commercial time during the game for the foundation's Heal L.A. campaign, which aimed to provide health care, drug education, and mentorship for Los Angeles youth in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
[14] On the heels of his appearance at the 1993 American Music Awards, Jackson's 1991 album Dangerous saw a 83% increase in sales, moving 21,000 copies in the United States in the week following the Super Bowl.
He made the halftime show America's preeminent platform for reaching the masses, and his natural sense of spectacle was perfect for American football, as exemplified by his insane leap up from a trapdoor in the stage.
It’s hard to hear the music over all of the cheering (which lasted a full three minutes before a note was even played), there was a commercial break in the middle of the program, and the game was in California, so it wasn’t quite dark out.