Lady Gaga Has Been Planning Her Super Bowl Performance Since She Was 4

Lady Gaga sings the national anthem before the NFL Super Bowl 50
Jae C. Hong/AP Photo
Lady Gaga sings the national anthem before the NFL Super Bowl 50 football game between the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers, Sunday, Feb. 7, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Six-time Grammy winner Lady Gaga will entertain her biggest audience yet when she performs the halftime show at Super Bowl LI. But before her sure-to-be-a-spectacle show, an estimated 115 million TV sports fans will be introduced to a spectacular new feature called “Be the Player,” which gives a field-level point of view on select replays from the big game. “We’re creating this very much like a video game,” says John Entz, executive producer of the Fox Sports Super Bowl telecast. “We pop down, take a look from the quarterback’s eyes and see what the pass rush is.”

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Fox teamed up with Silicon Valley giant Intel, which developed the 360 Replay technology, and practiced for months during a couple of NFL matchups and a college bowl game. Interestingly, no cameras are attached to the players. Instead, Houston’s NRG Stadium will be surrounded with cameras, and then computers will re-create the play in 3-D.

“The hope is if everybody is sitting around eating their bean dip and watching the broadcast,” Entz says, “they’ll say, ‘Whoa, that was something I’ve never seen before.’”

They’ll definitely see Lady Gaga as never before. The pop diva won raves for singing the national anthem at last year’s Super Bowl, but that was just a warm-up to commanding the world’s largest stage. “I’ve been planning this since I was 4, so I know exactly what I’m going to do,” the “Poker Face” singer says.

In the buildup, rumors spread that she wanted to sing from the top of the stadium roof, which the singer confirmed on Tuesday. Notes Entz: “We all expect it to be a sensational show.”

Lady Gaga, who is promoting her album Joanne, approached the big game like an athlete. Her Instagram photos include one of her stretching: “Training. Every day all day,” she wrote. That’s how to be a real player.

Training. Everyday all day 🏈🎤#superbowl #halftime

A photo posted by xoxo, Joanne (@ladygaga) on

Super Bowl LI, Sunday, Feb. 5, 6:30/5:30c, Fox