For most K-pop acts — and even most U.S. pop stars — selling out a stadium tour, achieving a No. 1 placement on the Billboard charts and breaking global streaming records would individually be enough to define a career peak.
For BTS, however, those milestones are simply part of the past.
A little over a month has passed since the septet resumed full-group activities after a nearly four-year hiatus with its fifth full-length album, “Arirang,” and launched what is set to be the biggest world tour in K-pop history.
Since its grand comeback at Gwanghwamun Square in March, BTS has sold 4.17 million copies of “Arirang” in its first week of release; become the first K-pop act to top the Billboard 200 albums chart for three consecutive weeks; and kept all 14 tracks from the album — including the lead single “Swim” — on Spotify’s weekly top global songs chart for six straight weeks.
These numbers suggest that BTS’s upward momentum will not only likely last but is formidable. But they also raise a complicated question for the group’s self-proclaimed “2.0” era: What comes next?
As BTS enters the second phase of its career, its future no longer concerns whether the group can reclaim its place at the top of the global music market; instead, it revolves around what milestone, if any, still holds the power to mean something for an act that has already redrawn the boundaries of K-pop.
There are three possible answers to this dilemma: a Super Bowl halftime performance, a Coachella headline slot and a long-awaited Grammy win. Each represents a different form of significance, from mainstream U.S. visibility to live-music prestige before a broader festival audience and institutional validation from the Western music industry, respectively.
But another question remains: Does BTS still need validation from such benchmarks?
The Super Bowl
In an interview with Rolling Stone published on April 13, BTS carefully discussed the possibility of performing at the Super Bowl halftime show, arguably one of pop music’s biggest stages, watched by not only American football fans but sports and music enthusiasts around the world.
“Maybe if time goes by, and the thoughts in the people change,” leader RM cautiously said when asked about the possibility of performing at what he described as “the best […] show stage in the whole world.”
“All of the people in the world are watching ‘Parasite’ [2021], all these great things in Korean culture, so if there’s a chance [to perform at the Super Bowl], we definitely want to, someday.”
The question came after Puerto Rican singer and rapper Bad Bunny made history with a halftime show performed entirely in Spanish, prompting renewed discussion over whether BTS, as a mainly Korean-language act, could one day perform at what is often considered the pinnacle of U.S. pop culture.
“Of course I want to [perform at the Super Bowl], but it’s not up to us,” Jungkook said.
The idea of BTS headlining the halftime show may not be entirely detached from reality, especially since Jungkook was invited by Usher to join him onstage during the singer’s 2024 Super Bowl halftime performance, though the BTS member had to decline as he was fulfilling his mandatory military service.
Additionally, important distinctions remain between the Puerto Rican and Korean stars. While international performers have headlined or co-headlined the show before, including British band Coldplay and Colombian singer Shakira, the Super Bowl remains closely tied to the U.S. mainstream.
As a result, it makes sense that Bad Bunny — a U.S. citizen who has become deeply embedded in the U.S. mainstream for not only his music but also his political and social activism — was invited to perform, despite doing so exclusively in Spanish.
BTS, by contrast, remains a Korean act whose dominance has largely been built through a more global, fandom-driven structure than year-round exposure within the U.S. media ecosystem.
That is why, as RM subtly implied, the prospect of BTS headlining the show appears possible in theory but is difficult in the immediate future, even without factoring in their busy world tour schedule.
“BTS cannot be considered a U.S. mainstream act, at least not on par with Bad Bunny’s profile in the culture among the broader public audience,” said culture critic Lim Hee-yun. “Performing well on music charts is not the same as having one’s songs constantly played on the radio or TV.”
Coachella
On the other hand, when it comes to BTS headlining the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival — one of the world’s largest and most well-known festivals — the question appears to be less about whether BTS can do it and more about whether the group would want to.
While BTS has never appeared as a group at either Coachella or Lollapalooza, J-Hope headlined Lollapalooza Chicago as a soloist in 2022, making history as the first K-pop artist to headline a main stage at a major U.S. music festival.
Girl group Blackpink became the first K-pop group to headline Coachella in 2023 after first performing at the festival in 2019. Since then, a growing number of K-pop acts have performed at Coachella, though not as headliners, including Big Bang and SHINee’s Taemin this year.
For BTS, then, the decision to headline Coachella would depend on the festival’s strategic value.
“BTS must have had quite a lot of offers for festival headlines before,” said Lim. “The issue would be whether such an appearance would fit the group’s needs or schedules.”
The Grammys
The Grammys have long been portrayed as the last holy grail for BTS in its extensive list of accolades, and experts believe the band’s chances for a win may be stronger this year than in the past.
“The Grammys are an industry award show, with the winners chosen by Recording Academy members,” noted culture critic Kim Hern-sik. “BTS and [HYBE founder] Bang Si-hyuk worked with U.S. producers for this album, which works in the group’s favor.”
He also pointed to the recent Netflix livestream of BTS’s comeback show in Gwanghwamun as a factor that could increase the group’s visibility among international industry voters.
“The Netflix livestream of BTS’s comeback show had a solid impact [on the band’s visibility], which also could help its prospects of a possible win,” Kim said.
Until recently, BTS has been the only K-pop act to receive Grammy nominations, earning nods in categories including Best Pop Duo/Group Performance and Best Music Video. Two Koreans, soprano Sumi Jo and sound engineer Hwang Byung-joon, have previously won Grammys.
However, the landscape has begun to shift once again. Rosé’s viral megahit “APT.” (2024), the soundtrack of Netflix’s “KPop Demon Hunters” (2025) and girl group Katseye — with the latter two being not strictly K-pop but closely tied to its production ecosystem — expanded the presence of K-pop or K-pop-adjacent music with Grammy recognitions, with the Netflix hit animated film winning Best Song Written for Visual Media this year.
But would a Grammy win further consolidate BTS’s global rise, or have such recognition become less relevant in measuring the group’s standing?
Kim argued that the Grammys may not be fully equipped to evaluate K-pop on its own terms.
“Traditional pop acts have mainly been judged by their individual profile,” he said. “But K-pop encompasses not only [that] but also the broader culture of their fandoms. In a way, the question is whether the Recording Academy recognizes that or not.”
