For months, speculation had mounted over which global superstar would headline the Super Bowl LX halftime show. Taylor Swift and Adele were the front-runners — at least in the hearts of their fans. But on Sunday night, the National Football League announced that Bad Bunny was its choice.
Many celebrated the fact that the Grammy-winning Puerto Rican superstar would bring his fusion of Latin trap and reggaeton, and other genres to football’s biggest stage on Feb. 8, 2026. Then came the backlash.
Right-wing critics denounced the choice as “woke propaganda,” fixating on two points: Bad Bunny performs largely in Spanish, and he has openly criticized the Trump administration’s immigration policies — particularly its aggressive use of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
Some people online have even suggested that the artist should be deported during his performance — forgetting, or perhaps not knowing, that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.
But the ignorance doesn’t end there. Framing the league’s decision as another culture war flash point misses a simpler reality: Picking Bad Bunny, who unapologetically represents the Latin diaspora, is a shrewd business play for the NFL. His massive international appeal makes him an ideal choice to help the league advance its ambition of building a global fan base.
Those desires date back to the 1960s, at least, but really took flight in 1986 when the NFL began a series of preseason games in the U.K. This year, the league is holding seven regular season games in five countries on two continents, and it just announced a deal to play at least three regular season games over five years in Rio de Janeiro.
The international games have done well, selling out stadiums around the world. But the league isn’t leaving anything to chance. In addition to playing games in overseas markets, it’s leaned into building grassroots interest in the sport as well by sponsoring watch parties and youth leagues, among other steps, in targeted regions. The strategy has worked. Last year, for example, the NFL estimated that Germany is home to 19 million NFL fans, of whom 3.6 million watch it regularly.
By far, however, the biggest fan base abroad is in Latin America. Mexico, according to the league, is home to 40 million fans on its own. Meanwhile, Latino viewers — in the U.S. and outside of it — are spiking, as are Spanish-language broadcasts. Some of that growth is likely due to Mexico’s shared border with the U.S. and its cultural ties (some version of football has been played there since the 1920s), and some is no doubt due to the NFL’s marketing efforts in the region.
As usual, the league wants more. Commissioner Roger Goodell recently talked up his interest in expanding the NFL’s international schedule to 16 games per season, and the possibility of holding a Super Bowl abroad. Achieving these targets could generate billions in new revenue and attract legions of fans. But football alone won’t get the NFL there, not even in Latin America. The league must also position itself as a cultural force that extends beyond the game, just as it has in the U.S.
The Super Bowl halftime show is an ideal platform for doing it.
Though it started out as little more than a time-filler featuring marching bands, it’s become a sophisticated tool for the league to court the demographics that it covets as fans. For example, in the mid-2010s, the NFL sought to attract millennials to its broadcasts by booking artists such as Beyoncé, Katy Perry and Coldplay.
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The halftime show isn’t just about spotlighting a generation’s favorite artists. It’s also crafted to present whoever is on the stage in ways that feel authentic to the intended audience. In recent Super Bowls, that’s meant engineering moments tailor-made for short-form clips that can be shared on Instagram and TikTok.
Serena Williams’ cameo during Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX performance in February, epitomized this kind of content. Based on my own social media, many of the people sharing those clips aren’t (or weren’t) NFL fans. And a recent poll conducted by Seton Hall University found that 25% of the people tuning into the Super Bowl do so because they look forward to the halftime show more than the game (or commercials). For self-identified non-fans, the percentage rises to 38%. Many of those halftime spectators may never become serious NFL football fans. But they might just tune in to another halftime. That’s probably good enough for the league as it proves its relevance in international markets where it’s competing with homegrown favorites such as soccer.
Bad Bunny can only help with that endeavor. Critics who complain that the artist is not a representation of American football aren’t familiar with NFL’s long game. The goal is to have more people recognize NFL as an international brand and that transcends national politics.
Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the business of sports. He is the author, most recently, of “Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale.”
