Ahead of the 2014 UEFA Champions League final -- a Madrid derby in Lisbon's Estadio da Luz -- famed choreographer Wanda Rokicki said the prematch entertainment would honor Portuguese traditions "including naval history or the art of tiles." The following year in Berlin, an estimated 180 million viewers in 200 countries watched Barcelona dust Juventus 3-1, but not before opera stars Nina-Marie Fischer and Manuel Gomez Ruiz sang hymns with the Junges Ensemble Berlin Choir.
Somehow that was a departure from the 2013 iteration, which included a giant game of chess, 300-plus drummers and Joey, the equine puppet from Steven Spielberg's "War Horse," galloping around the Wembley pitch.
Europe's answer for a Super Bowl halftime show, this was not.
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But that was all before PepsiCo -- whose 10-year Super Bowl halftime show sponsorship deal ended last year -- entered into a partnership with UEFA that has seen it sponsor the Kick Off Show since 2015. In 2016, fresh from joining Season 11 of "The Voice," Alicia Keys -- keen to point out that the UCL final reaches "every corner of the world" -- debuted new music in Milan ahead of that year's final.
"By creating a global stage as part of the UEFA Champions League final for the first time will produce an epic, memorable moment that will draw an even broader global fan base to the pitch, elevate the excitement of the 2016 final, and establish a new tradition for one of the world's most beloved sport spectacles," Carla Hassan, then-senior vice president of PepsiCo's global brand management, said at the time.
But multi-Grammy winner Keys' performance did not leave an impression on the San Siro crowd. The following year the Black Eyed Peas, flanked by dueling keytarists, ran their hits -- including "Let's Get it Started" off 2003's "Elephunk" -- but did so without Fergie, whose departure from the band was announced the day before.
"I noticed a change in 2017 in Cardiff [with] the Black Eyed Peas," Andy Elliot, UK media liaison of UEFA, told ESPN. "To get them to play a football match was quite something -- it was the first big one [Pepsi] did and they really cut it fine. [In the end], they were being chased off the field."
Taboo, will.i.am and APL.DE.AP, the remaining Peas, entered the Millennium Stadium pitch in a full sprint. "People in Cardiff, put your hands up!" Taboo beckoned amid "Boom, Boom, Pow" -- a plea which, a panning camera revealed, went largely unfulfilled.
Global pop stars such as Dua Lipa, Sean Paul, Imagine Dragons, Marshmello, Selena Gomez, Khalid and Camila Cabello have all showcased their talents before kickoff in club soccer's biggest match in the years since, to mixed receptions.
"We start internal discussions with UEFA in the summer and with artists typically about nine months before the UCL final," said Mark Kirkham, PepsiCo's chief marketing officer of international beverages. "We usually then begin the creative process with the artist about seven months before the big date.
"We see the Kick Off Show as a creative platform to bring international genres to a mainstream stage and celebrate diversity in the music industry: Camila Cabello and how she infused aspects of her Cuban-Mexican heritage, this year Burna Boy celebrating his Nigerian roots and Anitta bringing Brazilian flair," Kirkham added. "[We ask ourselves]: 'Are they the biggest name in music right now? Are they the next big thing?'"
In total, Kirkham says, from inception to execution, the process takes almost a full year.
"It's not a stretch to say they looked at the Super Bowl and saw the kind of impact the entertainment had on the [game]," Elliot said. "[UEFA] have tried to make [the final] a much bigger occasion and the entertainment is part of that."
Kirkham confirms that only official PepsiCo partners and sponsors, such as Gatorade and Lay's, have branding presence in and around the stadium. And while Super Bowl halftime show performers aren't compensated for the performance, PepsiCo declined comment on if artists are paid or how much the production typically costs.
"[But] not counting the promotional activities leading up to the show, the performance is broadcast to nearly 200 countries and territories globally," Kirkham said. "It's an incredible platform for any artist, and many integrate it into their overall marketing campaigns and tour schedules where appropriate."
Super Bowl LVII in February was the second-most-watched Super Bowl of all time, according to Nielsen, with 136 million viewers between Fox television and digital. In a typical year, the UCL final's global audience is three to four times that -- but, arguably, what the Super Bowl does better is entice casual fans. To illustrate the gap in audience reach between the Super Bowl and UCL performances, Rihanna's 2023 halftime show garnered 162 million views on YouTube and the 2022 Super Bowl show got 204 million views, while last year's Champions League performance mustered 39 millions views and the 2021 performance hit similar numbers with 33 million views.
"Those two hours [of the UCL final] have proven year in and year out to be an absolute draw, so why not piggyback [and] bring in more of the casual audience?" said Rob Stone, Fox Sports' lead soccer host since 2012. "If you're able to pull in those casual viewers, that's another feather in [executives'] cap. Mom or Dad or your sister who doesn't know much about soccer, if Rihanna's going to be on, they're going to be interested."
Rihanna's Super Bowl LVII extravaganza, in which she revealed to the world that she was pregnant with her second child, wasn't just a boon as far as reach and exposure; it further gilded the Barbados singer's pockets overnight. According to Luminate, which provides Billboard with the data that comprises its charts, Rihanna's song sales experienced a boost of nearly 400% in the days following her performance. From the day of the halftime show through the day after, on-demand streams peaked at above 62 million, up from 26 million 48 hours prior.
It's that type of instant reach that UEFA can't necessarily offer yet, but hopes to. Soccer, as Stone points out, is still evolving in popularity stateside. But it's also a far cry from his first World Cup working for ESPN/ABC in 1998.
"It was just a tight-knit core group of folks doing their best to not dip to black," Stone said of that broadcast team in Paris.
And now?
"In Qatar for Fox and the World Cup, the amount of people and preparation more than quadrupled," Stone said. "Soccer was always seen as kind of an outsider sport [to the] people who make decisions and write checks: Is there enough of a fan base? How much explaining do we really have to do? The growth of this sport has been surreal -- gone past even most people's wildest expectations."