3 takeaways from Bad Bunny's Super Bowl 2026 halftime show

At first glance, Bad Bunny’s halftime show at Super Bowl LX — arguably the biggest cultural-political flashpoint of the new year — looked like 14 minutes of upbeat, crowd-pleasing entertainment. The 31-year-old Puerto Rican singer steered clear of any statements about federal ICE agents and avoided any partisan sloganeering. Nevertheless, he found imaginative ways to send his message. Here are three takeaways from a concert that was likely seen by roughly 100 million people around the world.

STAR POWER IS STRONGER THAN POLITICS. The NFL knew what it was doing when it chose Bad Bunny as the evening’s entertainment. The singer’s fierce pride in Puerto Rico (a U.S. territory with a fraught history), his insistence on recording almost entirely in Spanish, and his refusal to tour the U.S. over concerns that ICE agents might raid his concerts has made him an effigy for the right. But the NFL wants to make inroad with Latino viewers, both at home and abroad — and who better to roll out the welcome mat than Bad Bunny? He has notched more than 100 songs on Billboard’s Hot 100, was crowned Spotify’s most-streamed artist of 2025 (with 19.5 billion streams) and recently won his sixth Grammy. With numbers like that, the NFL probably isn't bothered much by a little heat from the White House.

SMART STARS CHOOSE THEIR BATTLES. The day after Bad Bunny said "Ice out" during a Grammy acceptance speech, Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner, told reporters that the singer understood that the Super Bowl show should "unite people." Appearing on an Apple Music podcast a few days before the game, Bad Bunny promised a show that would be "fun" and "easy." That’s basically what he delivered.

Some might say Bad Bunny missed a chance to say something important on his biggest stage yet. Then again, the fallout from political statements are sometimes remembered better than the statements themselves — just look at the Dixie Chicks and Sinead O’Connor. At any rate, Bad Bunny can now count the Super Bowl as one of the many pop-culture Everests — alongside headlining Coachella and hosting "Saturday Night Live" — where he has planted his flag.

BAD BUNNY JUST REINVENTED THE PROTEST SONG. Bruce Springsteen for years has followed his left-leaning political compass, and his recent anti-ICE song, "The Streets of Minneapolis," has reached No. 1 on the Digital Song Sales chart. All due respect to the Boss’s integrity and bravery, but this feels like a page from a very old playbook — an attempt at another "Ohio," perhaps.

By contrast, Bad Bunny’s concert avoided any partisan grandstanding and instead built its messages into the show itself. The musical numbers — from "Yo Perreo Sola" to "Nuevayol" — unfolded as a vivid tapestry of Puerto Rican life, with the singer sauntering through sugar cane fields, performing on a humble rooftop (which amusingly collapsed) and dancing among malfunctioning, spark-throwing telephone poles. As vibrant as anything from "In the Heights," the show presented Puerto Rico as America’s neglected stepchild but also as a place of resilience, creativity and pride. Whatever your politics, what’s to argue about here? The closest this show came to sloganeering was a billboard proclaiming: "The only thing more powerful than hate is love."

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com