When Bad Bunny was chosen as the featured halftime performer at this year’s Super Bowl, it was almost as if the NFL was sending a message to conservatives and the Trump administration.
Amid a massive immigration crackdown, you pick a Latino star who tells everyone that they have to learn Spanish if they want to enjoy his show. Just imagine the arrogance of telling people they need to learn a foreign language in their own country.
Now, Bad Bunny is walking that back just a smidge, but the damage is done, as Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is featuring a competitive halftime show. So, let the games begin.
Bad Bunny announced his gig during a Saturday Night Live episode, where he started in English, then switched over to Spanish.
The translation of what he said in Spanish is, “… Especially all the Latinos and Latinas in the whole world, and here in the United States, all the people who have worked to open doors, more than I have achieved, who have achieved everything, demonstrating that our way, our carrying of this country, no one can ever remove nor erase.”
Then he switched back over to English, adding, “And if you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn.”
His music is not my thing, and it never will be after that comment. The pushback was immediate, and he likely cost the NFL some viewership numbers because of it, but even that comes with a caveat that I will cover below.
This gave TPUSA the reason it needed to get into the entertainment sector, and it jumped all over it, announcing the “All-American Halftime Show,” with Kid Rock being the featured entertainer.
Andrew Kolvet, Turning Point USA's spokesperson, explained, “There are very few organizations positioned to step into this space.”
This fits right into TPUSA’s wheelhouse, as the organization has been expanding for years. While it still holds the smaller school events where Charlie Kirk held his debates, it has also started to hold some rather large-scale events.
Kolvet continued that the show was for the people who are starting to feel disconnected from the entertainment world that is dominated by liberal ideology, adding, “They still want excellent music and performances, but increasingly feel out of touch with what they’re seeing out of Hollywood and major award shows.”
The TPUSA show has been getting a lot of momentum, and the question now is how many people will tune out from NBC during the halftime show and head over to the stations airing TPUSA’s event (you can see it on Daily Wire+, Real America's Voice, TBN, CHARGE!, The National News Desk, NTD.com, and OAN News, as well as live streaming on TPUSA’s social media channels).
If people tune out, it will be bad for business, and Bad Bunny knows it, so he dialed it back a little bit this week, stating, "I know I told them they had four months to learn Spanish. They don't even have to learn Spanish. They (can) learn to dance.”
I do expect the TPUSA halftime show to draw a decent crowd, but I doubt it will impact the overall numbers for NBC. Just as you will have people tuning in solely to see Kid Rock perform during the TPUSA event, you are going to have non-football fans tune into NBC and Peacock just to see the halftime show with Bad Bunny, and considering how big Bad Bunny is (he was the top-streamed artist on Spotify in four of the last six years), there may be more people tuning in for halftime than the game.
That said, I love the idea of there literally being an All-American option because I am sick and tired of having music I cannot relate to thrown down my throat every Super Bowl. Just give me some rock and roll and let’s call it a day.
