Sweet victory: Is Maroon 5 featuring SpongeBob in their Super Bowl halftime show?

Maroon 5 teased SpongeBob SquarePants in their Super Bowl LIII halftime preview. We hope this means they will be performing “Sweet Victory!”

Super Bowl halftime performances have led to some pretty iconic (and sometimes controversial) moments over the years. Who can forget Left Shark from Katy Perry’s show in 2015 or Lady Gaga descending from the sky in 2017? There has also been controversy over the years including last year when the Super Bowl invited Justin Timberlake back but not Janet Jackson.

The upcoming Super Bowl LIII will have Maroon 5 as the halftime performer, and SpongeBob SquarePants fans might have something to look forward to as well. The band released a video on Monday teasing their performance in the Super Bowl, and sneaked in a quick shot of SpongeBob that has fans wondering what’s going on. You can see SpongeBob around the 30-second mark of the video.

Many fans are taking this cameo as a sign that Maroon 5 will include an iconic SpongeBob SquarePants moment in their set in order to honor the creator of the series, Stephen Hillenburg, who passed away last November due to ALS.

Fans started a petition online a few months ago to have the song “Sweet Victory,” which was featured on the episode “Band Geeks” in 2001, performed at the Super Bowl. The Change.org petition has more than 1.2 million signatures at the time of writing this. And it seems to be gaining momentum toward reaching its 1.5 million signature goal thanks to the Maroon 5 video.

Truly, the song is so legendary and fun, it would be perfect to perform at the Super Bowl. Who hasn’t wanted to see that song performed in real life in an iconic arena?

As ComicBook.com points out — to add a little more hope that this moment could occur —  the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, which will host the Super Bowl this year, put out a tweet to possibly let fans know they knew about the petition. This happened in mid-December, so maybe that means a possible SpongeBob tribute has been planned for a while.

As of now, a SpongeBob appearance in the halftime show hasn’t been confirmed. But, it seems pretty clear that Maroon 5 is aware of the petition since they threw in that amazing nod to the series in their teaser video.

We are really crossing our fingers that Maroon 5 does something related to SpongeBob in their show because it would truly be delightful and memorable. We really are ready!

You can look out for a possible SpongeBob cameo at the Super Bowl on Sunday night, Feb. 3 on CBS.