Black Eyed Peas to play Super Bowl XLV halftime show at Cowboys Stadium

The Black Eyed Peas will play the Super Bowl XLV halftime show at Cowboys Stadium in February, a source confirmed to the Dallas Morning News on Wednesday.

A spot playing at the Super Bowl is considered a highly coveted gig for musicians. Last year’s Super Bowl averaged 106.5 million viewers and peaked at about 114 million, making it the most watched show in U.S. TV history.

The Black Eyed Peas have a history with the NFL – the group performed at the league’s kickoff concert last year in Pittsburgh – and there had been rumors that they would be the headliners.

The Los Angeles hit makers – performers of two of the three most downloaded songs ever on iTunes – will be the most youthful group of performers since the Super Bowl was last played in Texas. That halftime show, in Houston in 2004, is notorious for the breast-exposing “wardrobe malfunction” during a duet by Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake.

Since then, halftime performers have been older artists, including Prince, The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and The Who at this year’s game.

The Who’s performance at Super Bowl XLIV drew criticism from Fox Sports President David Hill, whose network is broadcasting the 2011 Super Bowl.

“I’m watching them going, ‘Oh, no, please.’ If I saw [guitarist and singer] Pete Townshend’s belly again I was going to throw up. In his younger days it might have been rippling muscle but now it’s like mine, rippling fat,” Hill told the Los Angeles Times at the time. “Poor old Roger [Daltrey] had one of the purest voices, but it’s history.”

Hill said he’d like to see someone under the age of 60 playing at the next Super Bowl.

While hardly teen sensations, The Black Eyed Peas do meet Hill’s criteria. The four members – will.i.am, apl.de.ap, Taboo and Fergie – are all in their mid-30s.