There's only one GOAT of half-time performances: Red Panda. But, outside of her, most sporting events don't realize the opportunity they have in front of them during these half-time periods. I have had the occasional performance that keeps me interested at college basketball games but overall, we seem to get the same old chair balancing, trampoline dunking gimmick. Don't get me wrong, I'm mildly impressed at the moment, but it's forgettable, and in a way, I feel like I've seen that kind of stuff before. There have been some creative attempts, such as baby races, but nothing relatively sticks. I want to see things you'd only see at the circus, such as Red Panda. When I first saw her on that fifteen-foot unicycle, placing those bowls on her shins, maintaining balance, and flipping up about eight to ten bowls perfectly to be stacked up to her head was a wild experience. It was almost equally as entertaining as the sporting event itself. You can tell she worked her whole life for these ten minutes per night and has earned the respect that makes her a national brand. If I found out Red Panda was performing at half-time, I genuinely would not mind paying an extra 5-10 bucks for a ticket to a game.  

It makes me wonder why the half-time performance is not included on the ticket. I understand these sports franchises and schools are a business. Still, they are in the entertainment business and to attend these stadiums or arenas. You need to leave an impression if you have any performance. If these arenas and stadiums decide not to have any half-time show, that's fine as well; in fact, I'd welcome it to give myself a break from the excitement of the game. But if we are going to have a show at this point, these arenas need to go all in. Again, the circus or some America's Got Talent stuff would hit much harder than a group of little kids doing some dance routine from the local elementary school. Hell, let's get wild and have some modern-day cock fighting with battle bots duking it out on the court or field, clean up might be an issue, but that's not my job to figure out those details. I'm just tired of taking five or ten minutes out of the half-time period to "recognize" some wealthy tycoon donating to the local children's hospital.  

At the very minimum, why not show on the Jumbotron other live sporting events during half-time? Most people attending these sporting events will likely welcome watching another game on a massive screen. A great example of something unique I experienced was back in 2012; I attended the last game of the Charlotte Bobcats game, which also happened to be taking place during the first round of the NFL Draft. The draft itself wasn't on the Jumbotron, but the arena announced it happened at the moment. So I still got to experience Carolina Panthers draft Luke Keuchly live while being at an NBA game, even though it would have been better had they done it so everyone in the "Time Warner Cable" arena could see it live. It requires minimal effort for something like that yet still leaves an impact.  

Maybe one day, these schools and franchises will catch on and invest more into the half-time period with more entertaining performances or even realize they don't have to invest all that much. But this half-assing attempt is a mediocre presentation that only entertains simple-minded fools. But who knows, maybe that's their target audience.

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