SpongeBob SquarePants' 'Sweet Victory' Jumps 566% in Streams After Super Bowl Halftime Cameo

Maroon 5, Travis Scott & Big Boi also see streaming gains after the Big Game.

SpongeBob SquarePants' "Sweet Victory" makes a super-size gain in streams, thanks to the tune's brief cameo in the Feb. 3 Super Bowl halftime show starring Maroon 5.

One of Maroon 5’s guest stars, Travis Scott, was introduced by an onscreen snippet of the “Band Geeks” episode of the animated series SpongeBob SquarePants. In the clip, about eight seconds of fanfare from the song “Sweet Victory” is heard, performed by David Eisley and Bob Kulick.

On the day of the big game and the day following, “Sweet’s” on-demand streams (audio and video combined) surged by 566 percent in the U.S., as compared to the two previous days, according to Nielsen Music. The song’s streams jumped to 310,000 on Feb. 3 and Feb 4 (combined) versus just 46,000 on Feb. 1 and Feb. 2.

The inclusion of “Sweet Victory” in the halftime show was likely sparked by a Change.org petition that called for the Super Bowl to honor SpongeBob’s creator, Stephen Hillenburg, who died in November.

As for the six Maroon 5 songs the band performed during halftime (“Harder to Breathe,” “This Love,” “Girls Like You,” “She Will Be Loved,” “Sugar” and “Moves Like Jagger”), they collectively jumped 35.3 percent in on-demand streams (4.90 million on Feb. 3-4 vs. 3.62 million on Feb. 1-2).

In total, Maroon 5’s entire catalog of songs climbed 38.3 percent in on-demand streams (11.84 million on Feb. 3-4 vs. 8.56 million on Feb. 1-2).

OutKast’s Big Boi and Scott also tallied increases for their guest performances in the halftime show.

Big Boi’s performance of OutKast’s “The Way You Move” yielded a 74 percent streaming gain (265,000 on-demand streams on Feb. 3-4 vs. 152,000 on Feb. 1-2). Further, another Big Boi-related track, “Kryptonite,” also rose after its brief inclusion in the show: it jumped 95.3 percent (56,000 streams on Feb. 3-4 vs. 29,000 on Feb. 1-2). “Kryptonite” is performed by Big Boi’s own Purple Ribbon All-Stars ensemble.

Scott’s single “Sicko Mode” climbed just 1 percent in on-demand streams (4.91 million on Feb. 3-4 vs. 4.86 million on Feb. 1-2). The tiny increase -- as compared to the rest of the halftime tunes’ growth — isn’t that shocking, since the track is a recent former No. 1 on Billboard’s Streaming Songs chart (topping the list dated Jan. 12) and remains in the top five on the current list (No. 5 on the Feb. 9-dated tally). Thus, “Sicko” was already a streaming monster -- and continues to be -- and didn’t have much room for growth.

Overall, the songs performed or heard during the halftime show (the six Maroon 5 songs, “Sweet Victory,” “The Way You Move,” “Kryptonite” and “Sicko Mode”) combined for a 19.8 percent gain in streams (10.4 million on Feb. 3-4 vs. 8.7 million on Feb. 1-2).