Bad Bunny doesn’t need the NFL as much as the NFL needs him

By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — If you’ve spent any time online, you’ve probably heard the phrase “you don’t know ball” used to point out a lack of knowledge.

It seems that some of those complaining most loudly about Bad Bunny being picked to headline the Super Bowl LX halftime show don’t know ball.

At least, they don’t seem to know that the National Football League (NFL) is not new to global superstars, nor controversy. The Puerto Rican “DeBi TiRAR MaS FOToS” singer’s selection has come with both – but will also bring more eyes from around the world onto the sport in a way the league has been craving.

The NFL’s quest to bolster its international fan base has been the driving force behind having more games played abroad, according to Sam Sanders, host of KCRW’s “The Sam Sanders Show.”

The league has been “seeing what’s happening with FIFA and with the World Cup and the way that soccer is truly an international sport and saying, ‘We want that too,’” he told CNN.

For the 2026 football season, the NFL has announced regular season games to be played in London, Madrid, Melbourne, Mexico City, Munich, Paris and Rio de Janeiro.

The six international games aired in 2025 on the NFL Network — which included games in Dublin, London, Berlin and Madrid — averaged 6.2 million viewers across television and digital, according to Nielsen figures shared by the league. That’s the highest season viewership average for international games on record, they added.

But they want more, and the easiest way to do that? “Have the biggest pop star in the world, who happens to sing in Spanish and is big globally, play your halftime show,” Sanders said.

To Jorell A. Meléndez-Badillo, a historian and author of “Puerto Rico: A National History” whose historical writings about the territory were incorporated into Bad Bunny’s YouTube content, it makes sense.

“I think it was a marketing decision on behalf of the NFL – to have a Spanish-speaking artist that just so happens to be the biggest star in the world,” he told CNN.

In search of a cultural touchdown

Some conservatives have taken issue with Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, for years, whether it was his flirtation with gender fluid fashion or his outspoken criticism of Donald Trump’s administration and its immigration policies.

Online, conservatives have threatened to boycott the Super Bowl and the NFL more broadly, with influential voices like Newsmax host Greg Kelly and Tomi Lahren openly criticizing the league for choosing Bad Bunny as the performer.

President Trump recently said he would not be attending the game and criticized the involvement of both Bad Bunny and rock band Green Day, who are longtime critics of his and are scheduled to perform as part of a special tribute before the game.

“I’m anti-them,” Trump said. “I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible.”

It appears someone forgot to tell NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to be worried.

During the commissioner’s annual state of the league address on Monday, Goodell defended Bad Bunny’s selection, saying he is “one of the great artists in the world” and “that’s one of the reasons we chose him.”

“But the other reason is he understood the platform he was on, and that this platform is used to unite people, and to be able to bring people together with their creativity, with their talents, and to be able to use this moment to do that,” Goodell said. “And I think artists in the past have done that. I think Bad Bunny understands that, and I think he’ll have a great performance.”

They didn’t do it alone, of course. In 2019, the NFL began a partnership with rapper/entrepreneur Jay-Z’s Roc Nation to help the league choose artists to perform at games and bring attention to social justice issues. The performers have since had edge and, at times, been controversial, like when Jennifer Lopez had kids in cages to reference Trump’s immigration policies, or last year, when Kendrick Lamar’s set was widely viewed as a commentary on the Black experience in America. Jay-Z’s selections have tapped into both the culture of the moment and the wider zeitgeist.

In 2024, Goodell announced that the partnership with Jay-Z and Roc Nation would be continuing, referring to it as “a mutually positive relationship.”

A campaign to engage Latinos

A Morning Consult survey published in 2023 found that “in big demographic terms, Latinos were the most excited and loyal fans of the NFL followed closely by Black Americans.” And the NFL is well aware.

For years, the league’s “Por La Cultura” campaign has aimed to spotlight Latino contributions to the game by showcasing the stories of players, coaches and staff. In launching this season’s campaign during Latino Heritage Month in September, NFL senior vice president of global brand and consumer marketing Marissa Solis noted the league had “more than 39 million Latino NFL fans in the US.”

With that type of outreach to Latinos living in the United States, having Bad Bunny perform “is much better for the NFL than Bad Bunny,” said Albert Laguna, an associate professor of ethnicity, race & migration and American studies at Yale University, where he teaches a course titled “Bad Bunny: Musical Aesthetics and Politics.”

Bad Bunny is already one of the most popular recording artists in the world, notching 19.8 billion streams last year on Spotify alone.

Over the weekend, he won three Grammys, including the coveted album of the year award for “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.”

Petra R. Rivera-Rideau, co-author of “P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance,” also sees a potential benefit to the companies who buy ads during the big game since US Latinos are a growing demographic “that companies are also often trying to court,” she said.

“So it’s like a great kind of kill two birds with one stone thing where you can attract a global audience and a local Latino audience,” she said.

Calvin Watkins, a Dallas Cowboys beat writer for the Dallas Morning News, told CNN he was not surprised that Goodell and the league are all in for Bad Bunny. Nor is he surprised that many aren’t as aware of the NFL’s aspirations beyond the US.

“It’s interesting that they’re going to play a game in Mexico City in December, and when you’re doing the research on that game, you discover they’ve had an office in Mexico City since the late nineties,” Watkins said. “They’ve always wanted to brand their game globally.”

When it comes to the Super Bowl, the game’s reach goes well beyond football fans, Watkins added.

“For a lot of people who watch this game, this might be the only time they watch a football game. A lot of times some people are just casual watchers of football, and the NFL is in the entertainment business,” he said. “Everyone remembers performances like Prince, Beyoncé, and Michael Jackson playing the halftime show because everyone remembers the halftime shows.”

The-CNN-Wire
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