Why is Bad Bunny performing at the Super Bowl?

The NFL announced on Sunday that Bad Bunny, the musician who just wrapped a residency in Puerto Rico, is now a hop, skip and step away from performing on the largest stage in America: the Super Bowl LX halftime show.

“What I’m feeling goes beyond myself. It’s for those who came before me and ran countless yards so I could come in and score a touchdown… this is for my people, my culture, and our history,” Bad Bunny said in an NFL statement announcing the halftime show.

Okay, but Americans are the ones in large part watching the Super Bowl – the same culture and country Bad Bunny chose to boycott when his world tour kicks off in November because of fear that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would raid the concert venues. As ICE operations have ramped up under President Donald Trump, Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, has shown his contempt for it and the White House Administration. In June, he posted an Instagram video that expressed his discontent and anger for not “leaving these people working here alone,” in Puerto Rico. 

“People from the US could come here to see the show. Latinos and Puerto Ricans of the United States could also travel here, or to any part of the world,” he told i-D magazine. “But there was the issue that… ICE could be outside (my concert venue). And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.”

It seems like quite a jump to go from keyboard warrior and boycotter of the United States to pandering for its premier sporting event. It seems that for Bad Bunny performing in the United States is a cardinal sin… unless you’re a featured solo artist. According to the NFL, this past year’s Super Bowl recorded the largest viewing audience ever with 127 million people watching across all platforms.

Why was Bad Bunny even chosen in the first place? Musicians of all backgrounds vie for the opportunity to perform at a Super Bowl. Gone are the days of recognizable names with long careers – Prince, Madonna, Michael Jackson. Now, the NFL is chasing fads. And most Americans won’t even be able to sing along to this fad’s music.

Bad Bunny will no doubt use the platform to advance some political point. It won’t be the first time in recent years the stage has been co-opted for this. At his Super Bowl performance earlier this year, Kendrick Lamar made subtle references to 40 acres and a mule, the unfulfilled promise of land and resources to freed slaves after the Civil War. Jennifer Lopez received flack after her 2020 halftime show for wanting to show the Puerto Rican flag and kids in cages, another dig at America’s immigration policies.

Gone are the days of Americans simply enjoying a good show. Once upon a not-so-long-ago time, audiences could enjoy incredible musical acts rather than being force fed a woke history lesson. Who’s to blame? Jay Z. In 2019, the NFL signed his Roc Nation label to produce halftime shows. He’s been predictably one-note, and that one note is woke.

The NFL shoulders some of the blame, of course. The league desperately wants to become an international sport (there are seven international games this year). Bringing in Bad Bunny is a ploy to grab the attention of a Spanish-speaking audience, which is being prioritized above the stereotypical burger-eating, beer-drinking bro culture that’s long been the sport’s audience.

Make no mistake, the opinions of fans who made the sport into the Goliath it is today are no longer top priority. Globalization is here for America’s most popular sport, fan dissent or confusion be damned.