Analysis of the PR fallout from the all-Spanish Super Bowl halftime show and its impact on American audiences.
The problem was the show’s conceit: It was a message of unity, inclusion, and togetherness — in a language that 85% of the population doesn’t understand and cannot speak.
That’s not unity. That’s division.
Lo siento, Bad Bunny and/or the NFL, but the underlying metrics of the NFL’s Super Bowl halftime show didn’t make a lick of sense:
- Only about 14% to 18% of the U.S. population speaks fluent Spanish — which means, of course, that 86% to 82% do not.
- Only 14% of the NFL’s total audience is Hispanic.
- The number of Latinos/Hispanics who speak English exclusively is growing, not shrinking: 78% of Latinos spoke Spanish at home in 2000; today, it’s just 68%.
- For Puerto Rico in particular, its population has declined by half-a-million people since 2010.
- A whopping 78% of Latinos/Hispanics — more than three out of four! — don’t believe speaking Spanish is necessary for a “Latino identity.”
- Another 78% of American homes are “English only.”
Let’s break it down further: 14% of the NFL’s audience is Hispanic — and 68% of that audience speaks Spanish. Which means, the NFL just dedicated its Hispanic-themed, Spanish-only halftime show to “entertain” just 9.52% of its total audience!
The other 90.48%? They were left in the cold.
But it was worse than that, because the English-only audience also felt ignored, marginalized, spurned, and excluded: The Super Bowl halftime show went from being a national celebration of the all-American sport of football to something 9 out of 10 Americans simply couldn’t follow.
(Probably more than 90%: My wife speaks fluent Spanish, but between the shoddy audio and Bad Bunny’s thick Puerto Rican accent, she struggled to make heads or tails of his singing, too. Plenty of other Spanish-speakers made similar comments.)
There weren’t even any English captions!
And oh, by the way, 73% of Americans support making English the official language of the U.S. government — with 54% “strongly” supporting it. It’s an overwhelmingly popular political position.
After all, if you truly care about “unity” and “togetherness,” sharing a common language is indispensable. Otherwise, your country risks Balkanizing.
Question: How did those 73% of Americans feel about Bad Bunny’s all-Spanish halftime show?
Answer: It probably ticked a (very) large percentage of ‘em off — and in numbers that exponentially dwarfed the 9.52% of the audience it was designed to entertain.
And the issue wasn’t just that it was in Spanish. Hell, we’ve had plenty of Spanish-singing halftime entertainers before: Just six years ago, Jennifer Lopez and Shakira headlined the Super Bowl LIV halftime show. In 1992 and 1999, Gloria Estefan was the headliner. Enrique Iglesias performed in 2000.
Yet each of the previous times, the Spanish-speaking performers understood they were performing before an English-speaking audience — and went out of their way to make their shows accessible to everyone.
Often by doubling down on their sexuality, but still:How many 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 year old girls just watched the Pepsi Half Time show and got the message they need to show their body to get noticed? How many 10-14 year old boys got the message that women’s bodies are what they should value by watching the Pepsi Half Time show?
Here’s the Pepsi Half Time show that the NFL thought was great for all ages! It featured stripper poles, butt shots with kids standing behind them, adults grinding & gyrating, rope to tie yourself with and plenty of crotch shots! What a wholesome show for little kids to watch.
Bad Bunny didn’t bother making his performance accessible. Which is why, to many Americans, it came across as rude and unwelcoming.
Here’s how Variety described it:
Many moments and elements in the show could also be perceived as a rebuke to the Trump administration and its brutal anti-immigration policies.
[…]
In perhaps the performance’s most loaded political moment, Bad Bunny’s Grammy acceptance speech last weekend, during which he’d said “ICE out” and gave an impassioned speech in English about racism, was replayed on a small television as a young boy — who certainly resembled Liam, the 5-year-old who was incarcerated by ICE in Minneapolis last month — and then the singer handed him his Grammy Award.
And that’s why liberal tastemakers and/or the mainstream media will give it glowing reviews: From the decision to speak exclusively in Spanish to the intersplicing symbolism, it was just as much a political statement as it was a musical performance.
If you favor Bad Bunny’s anti-ICE, anti-Trump politics, you gave it two thumbs up. Nothing else really mattered.
President Trump made his opinion crystal clear:
The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World. This “Show” is just a “slap in the face” to our Country, which is setting new standards and records every single day — including the Best Stock Market and 401(k)s in History! There is nothing inspirational about this mess of a Halftime Show and watch, it will get great reviews from the Fake News Media, because they haven’t got a clue of what is going on in the REAL WORLD — And, by the way, the NFL should immediately replace its ridiculous new Kickoff Rule. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Music is so culturally powerful because it heightens emotions. Certain songs are “emotional bookmarks”: Just a few notes will instantly transport you to a different place and time.
Your wedding song. The albums you played over and over again in your teens. The songs you shared with your children. The music that uplifted you when you were at your lowest.
We won’t always remember the lyrics or the names of the artists — but we’ll never forget how their music made us feel.
Last night at the Super Bowl, Bad Bunny’s performance made millions of Americans feel excluded, spurned, and left out. None of them will forget how they felt, either.
The end-result and the PR fallout?
In all probability, more Americans will now favor English as our national language than ever before — because they just got a sneak preview of what their lives will be like if it isn’t.
Hope it was worth it to entertain 9.52% of the audience.
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First: It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battlelines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
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