NFL: Beyoncé not the cause of blackout; power company speaks
By Mesfin Fekadu and Brett Martell
While her Super Bowl halftime performance was electrifying, the NFL has said that Beyoncé's show was not the cause of the power outage during the game.
NEW YORK — Don't blame Beyoncé for blowing the lights out at the Super Bowl.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Monday that the halftime show was not the cause of the power outage that darkened the Superdome for half an hour during Sunday's broadcast.
More: Cause of Super Bowl power outage remains unclear
"There's no indication at all that this was caused by the halftime show. Absolutely not. I know that's been out there that this halftime show had something to do with it. That is not the case," Goodell said.
Beyoncé was the halftime performer at Sunday night's game and used plenty of power to light up the stage. Some had joked that her electrifying performance was to blame for the outage.
In a joint statement from Entergy Corp. and SMG, the management company for the Superdome, the company said, "Shortly after the beginning of the second half of the Super Bowl in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, a piece of equipment that is designed to monitor electrical load, sensed an abnormality in the system.
"Once the issue was detected, the sensing equipment operated as designed and opened a breaker, causing power to be partially cut to the Superdome in order to isolate the issue."
The press release went on to say that no additional problems were detected, and that Entergy and SMG are continuing their investigation for the root cause.
The halftime show was running on its own generator, said Goodell and Doug Thornton, a vice president of SMG.
"It was not on our power grid at all," Thornton said, adding that the metered power consumption went down during halftime because the house lights were down.
Beyoncé's 13-minute set included the hits "Crazy in Love" and "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and a Destiny's Child reunion.
The energetic performance was sung live days after Beyoncé admitted she sang to a prerecorded track at President Barack Obama's inauguration. And it won applause from critics who called it a major improvement over Madonna, who sang to a backing track last year, and the Black Eyed Peas' much-criticized halftime show in 2011.
Afterward, Beyoncé announced that the "Mrs. Carter Show World Tour" will kick off April 15 in Belgrade, Serbia. The European leg of the tour will wrap up May 29 in Stockholm.
The tour's North American stint starts June 28 in Los Angeles and ends Aug. 3 in Brooklyn, N.Y., at the Barclays Center.
It was also announced Monday that a second wave of the tour is planned for Latin America, Australia and Asia later this year.
Online: http://www.beyonceonline.com/us/home
——
MSN News on Facebook and Twitter
Stay up to date on breaking news and current events.
Friend us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/news.msn
Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/msnnews
