- - Backstreet Boys Make Petition for Super Bowl Halftime Show, Say They'd Bring Out Britney Spears, Other 2000s Stars (Exclusive)

Meredith WilshereFebruary 14, 2026 at 1:00 AM

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Backstreet Boys

ERWIN SCHERIAU / APA / AFP via Getty

The Backstreet Boys want to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show

The band once turned down a chance to perform during the game and instead opted to sing the national anthem

When talking to PEOPLE, the band reveals which other music icons from the '90s and early 2000s they'd want to join the show

The Backstreet Boys are back, again.

The boy band is in the middle of their residency at Las Vegas' Sphere, yet they’re already setting their sights on their next big act: the Super Bowl halftime show.

“I just started an online petition on behalf of the group for us to do halftime 2027,” AJ McLean shares with PEOPLE. “You better vote yes for us to do halftime, especially because it's gonna be in Los Angeles at SoFi next year. That's home for me and Kevin [Richardson], so that would be pretty awesome.”

Nick Carter says their performance would be a “pop explosion" full of other music icons from the '90s and early 2000s.

“We're bringing back Britney Spears, we're bringing back *NSYNC,” Carter says of their would-be performance, to which McLean chimed in, “They both already did it, though."

Britney Spears performs with Steven Tyler of Aerosmith during the halftime show on Jan. 28, 2001, for Super Bowl XXXV

Brian Bahr/Allsport/Newsmakers

Spears and *NSYNC performed at the Super Bowl XXXV Halftime show in 2001, joining Aerosmith, Mary J. Blige and Nelly. At the time, the Backstreet Boys declined to join the performance, instead singing the national anthem that year.

“We’re bringing back 98 Degrees, I don't care. We're headlining,” Carter says. “We're bringing all of our pop friends back; it would be something like that."

"We're biased because we really think that our era of music, coming from the late '90s, early 2000s, is probably some of the most nostalgic for people and makes people feel good. We're part of a club of all those artists that you'd have to bring them back," he adds.

If they were to get the gig, Howie Dorough says he would want to do “some kind of flying in the stadium.”

Ideally, they would hope to "bring in the amazing creative team" that they have been "blessed" to work with during their residency.

Backstreet Boys

T-Mobile

"I think that will be pretty incredible. They're visual artists, we are creative as well as a unit. Everything here at Sphere was a group effort," McLean says. "Obviously, we were a big part of the creative process from scratch to the very first show. Bringing all the dream team back together again would be something of a spectacle for sure."

The Backstreet Boys were featured at this year's Super Bowl LX, but in a different way. They joined comedian Druski and musician MGK for a T-Mobile ad, where they reworked the lyrics to their song "I Want It That Way" to talk about the perks of the network.

“Everybody strives to, as an artist, to hopefully either have a commercial, sing the national anthem [or] do halftime. We were blessed with having a commercial this year,” Dorough shares.

on People

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”