By Brian Niemietz / New York Daily News
Upon further review, the big winner of Super Bowl 53 was SpongeBob Squarepants.
Following an eight-second clip of the animated character singing “Sweet Victory” during the halftime show, the silly song saw a 566 percent increase in streaming.
In the two days leading up to the big game, “Sweet Victory” streamed 64,000 times, according to Billboard. That number skyrocketed to 310,000 plays over the two days following the Super Bowl.
The widely panned halftime show centered around a lackluster performance by faux-funk pop band Maroon 5 and also included appearances by rappers Big Boi and Travis Scott.
Top acts like Rihanna, Jay Z and Cardi B reportedly declined to perform in support of exiled football player Colin Kaepernick, who hasn’t played a game in the NFL since kneeling during the National Anthem to protest police brutality in 2016.
SpongeBob SquarePants was added to the halftime lineup following an online petition asking event organizers to honor the cartoon’s creator, Stephen Hillenburg, who died Nov. 26 due to complications from ALS.
“Sweet Victory” was featured on a 2001 episode of SpongeBob SquarePants called “Band Geeks.”
Other performers from the halftime concert saw an uptick in downloads, too. Maroon 5’s entire song catalog got a 38.3 percent jump in streaming while Big Boi’s cover of the Outkast song “The Way You Move” was up 74 percent. “Sicko Mode,” performed by Scott, saw only a 1 percent jump in streams.
Here are the lyrics to the song “Sweet Victory”:
The winner takes all
It’s the thrill of one more kill
The last one to fall
Will never sacrifice their will
Don’t ever look back
On the wind closing in
The only attack
Were their wings on the wind
Oh the daydream begins
And it’s sweet, sweet, sweet victory, yeah!
And it’s ours for the taking
It’s ours for the fight
In the sweet, sweet, sweet victory, yeah!
And the world is last to fall
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