Party or politics? All eyes on Bad Bunny at Super Bowl
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Bad Bunny steered clear of politics when talking about his half-time performance at a press conference on Feb 5.
PHOTO: REUTERS
NEW YORK – The argument that sport and politics should not mix could be tested at the Super Bowl half-time show on Feb 8, when Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny
One week after capturing headlines at the Grammys,
The crackle of anticipation about Bad Bunny’s performance – and the question of whether the singer will use his platform to renew his criticism of President Donald Trump’s administration in front of tens of millions of viewers – is palpable.
Prediction site Polymarket is taking bets on whether the rapper-singer will drop an F-bomb to disparage the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on live television.
While the odds are firmly against – just 9 per cent, as at Feb 5 – the wager underscores the balancing act faced by the NFL as it prepares for its most-watched broadcast of the year.
The league has been in the crosshairs of critics ever since Bad Bunny was announced to headline the show back in September, with former Trump aide Corey Lewandowski decrying the “shameful” choice of an artiste “who just seems to hate America”.
Mr Trump, who attended the Super Bowl in 2025 but is staying away this time, recently called the 2026 entertainment line-up “a terrible choice” that will “sow hatred”.
Also featuring in the opening ceremony of Super Bowl LX – in which the New England Patriots play the Seattle Seahawks – will be American rock band Green Day, who have been vociferous critics of Mr Trump for years.
Right-wing political organisation Turning Point USA has even organised an alternative All-American Half-time Show
Expanding NFL audience
The NFL has remained steadfastly unmoved by the backlash.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell this week described Bad Bunny as “one of the great artistes of the world” and downplayed the suggestion that the show on Feb 8 could turn political, saying he expects the performance to “unite people”.
The wildly popular Bad Bunny – whose real name is Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio – steered clear of politics when talking about the performance at a press conference in San Francisco on Feb 5.
Instead, he indicated he plans to make the occasion a “huge party”.
“I want to bring to the stage, of course, a lot of my culture,” he said. “But I don’t want to give any spoilers. It’s gonna be fun and it’s gonna be a party.”
While Bad Bunny’s presence at the Super Bowl has antagonised political critics on the right, analysts say the choice of the entertainer reflects the NFL’s broader strategy of expanding the sport’s global fan base.
“The NFL knew that they would receive criticism from a certain sector of its fan base,” said Mr Albert Laguna, an associate professor of ethnicity, race and migration and American studies at Yale University.
“But it’s obvious that when they conducted a thorough review of the pros and cons, the reach of Bad Bunny and the benefits of that expanded audience outweighed any criticism.”
A growing number of NFL regular season games are now held overseas, with fixtures in recent months in Brazil and Spain.
“The NFL, are not idiots. They’ve crunched the numbers,” said Mr Patrick Bennett, global chief creative officer at marketing firm Jack Morton.
“They know where they’re saturated in the marketplace. Getting a 55-year-old white guy from Texas to buy another cowboy shirt is only going to get them so far.” AFP
