Man, what a boring Super Bowl… thankfully, we have loads and loads of halftime show drama to keep us busy, as well as countless memes about how Bad Bunny outrushed entire Patriots offense in the first half.

And look, I know nuance is a lost art in this internet economy, I know having a fair and balanced take is unheard of and that opinions of Bad Bunny’s halftime show are going to fall strictly across party lines. Conservatives are gonna call it the worst thing they’ve ever seen, Liberals will call it a powerful and moving performance that unites all of America. People who didn’t like it are racists, and people who loved it are communists…. yada yada, see you in two weeks when we move on to our next topic of mass division.

But I’m gonna do my best to give my honest opinion on all of this, the performance, the response to it, and my jumping off point is this tweet from Kacey Musgraves:

“Well. That made me feel more proudly American than anything Kid Rock has ever done.”

Really? A halftime show dedicated to Puerto Rican culture, one that was completely in Spanish, held in San Francisco, made you feel proudly American? Feels like a reach to me, Kacey.

And I get it, Bad Bunny is one of the biggest music stars in the world, and the NFL is looking to expand their audience into Latin America. This was a pure business decision by the NFL, who is already playing multiple games per year in Europe, and in Mexico as recently as 2022, but there is an entire untapped market across the Spanish speaking world, one of loyal soccer fans who could easily get into American football as well. And who better than Bad Bunny to try and draw more of those fans to tune in. The NFL knows that Americans are going to watch anyways.

The problem for me is that brands have this terrible habit of selling out their loyal fanbase for a shot at growing the audience. We’ve seen it with NASCAR recently, we’ve seen it with the NHL Stadium series going down to Florida to try and grow the game down there, we saw it with Bud Light when that VP of Marketing accused their own customers of being “fratty” and “out of touch” on the heels of the Dylan Mulvaney fiasco. We saw it with whatever the hell Jaguar tried to do with their last marketing campaign. Greed is the driver, not love for the fans, love for the sport, and certainly not love for country.

The Super Bowl is an American spectacle, one of the most-watched events every single year, and the halftime show should reflect a sense of American pride, it should connect with American people, not alienate them. Personally, I think the halftime show should also be in theme with the city who is hosting it. That’s why I enjoyed Shakira, J-Lo, J Balvin and Bad Bunny in Miami… it felt like a great way to showcase the culture of the city, while also featuring music that all Americans know and love. The incorporated some Spanish in there, but also some of their English hits that topped the American charts.

Now, let’s sprinkle in this hyper-divisive political climate, centered right now around immigration and border enforcement, and the NFL decides to call in a Puerto Rican entertainer who recently excluded the United States from his 2025/2026 tour. It’s a powder keg waiting to explode, and as much as Roger wanted to pretend like it was going to be a unifying thing, it wasn’t. Just look at social media right now.

Of course, Puerto Rico is an American territory, Bad Bunny is an American Citizen, I’m well aware of that. But it’s a vastly different culture, a different language. I think I’d be all for it if the NFL wanted to have the Super Bowl in Puerto Rico. Build a big stadium there, do the Pro Bowl there like they used to when it was in Hawaii. Hell, it’s a closer flight than San Francisco for half the country. Better weather…

I watched both of the halftime shows, and thought Bad Bunny’s production and stage design was actually really interesting, a lot better than we’ve seen in recent years. The music is catchy, the dancers were good, the vibe was fun… I actually felt like Bad Bunny was a little light on the energy himself, and certainly wasn’t blown away by him as a performer. He got upstaged by everything going on around him. But largely, I had no clue what was going on. My Spanish is fairly conversational, but in a musical context, pretty damn hard for me to follow along so I didn’t really understand what was being said. And I’ll admit, I fully expected some anti-ICE propaganda, perhaps some anti-Trump sentiment, but Bad Bunny made an effort to at least try and be “unifying” on a more global scale. And despite the dozen other flags, on the field, he did lead with the American flag.

But to bring this back to Kacey’s comment… nothing about this felt very “proudly American” in the traditional sense to me. I understand the messaging was “Together, we are America,” meaning North, Central, South… all of it, I get that, but football is unique to the United States. None of those other countries have contributed much to it at all. They don’t play it, don’t watch it, haven’t built it… so why is the Super Bowl the stage for a grand display of Puerto Rican patriotism? It’s akin to Morgan Wallen performing in English for a massive soccer tournament in South America.

It’s not about hate or racism, far from it, it’s just not a performance that speaks to the vast majority of Americans. I’m sure Puerto Rican and the Latino community here in the states loved it. My Puerto Rican friends loved it. But that’s kind of the point… it was for them. The NFL decided it was fine alienating a 5-10 million Americans, knowing the other 95% will still watch. And if they can get 10 million folks from Latin America to tune in, it’s a win. It’s a calculated gamble… one that I’m not sure will pay off.