The National Football League says it doesn’t do politics. Then it books Bad Bunny to headline the Apple Music Super Bowl halftime show in February at Levi’s Stadium. That’s not a neutral booking, but it’s a message. And the message to Donald Trump might as well be written on a foam finger — just not the finger sold at the team shop. Let’s start with the obvious. Bad Bunny has just left the United States off his 2025–26 world tour, saying he and his team were worried about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) showing up at his shows under Trump’s renewed illegal immigrant crackdown. “F—ing ICE could be outside,” Bad Bunny told i-D magazine. That is not coy code, it’s a plain political posture. The NFL chose that artist to front its biggest family telecast. .Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime announcement divides fans and critics.Bad Bunny has also been a vocal Trump critic for years. In 2024, he promoted Kamala Harris after a Trump-aligned event featured a supposed “racist joke” about Puerto Rico. The PBS segment documenting that support ran through Harris’s own indictment of Trump’s record on the island — “I will never forget what Donald Trump did… when Puerto Rico needed a caring and competent leader.” Again, the league didn’t pick a blank slate. It picked a man whose politics are well-telegraphed. Culturally, the selection is just as pointed. Bad Bunny has made gender-bending part of his brand — starring in drag in the “Yo Perreo Sola” video and talking openly about feeling a feminine side. In a GQ/Billboard profile, he embraced pushing “gender-fluidity” into the mainstream. In 2020, Rolling Stone highlighted how he uses that image to make arguments about violence against women and LGBTQ inclusion. If you think Jay-Z’s Roc Nation partnership with the NFL doesn’t understand the symbolism here, I’ve got a fair catch to sell you. .On sexuality, he’s played with the labels too. In a 2020 interview picked up by the Washington Blade, he described himself as fluid in outlook — saying that while he was straight “at the moment,” he didn’t feel boxed in by categories and could see that changing in life. Whether you cheer or jeer, it’s the opposite of the “safe” middle. The NFL chose it anyway. And “family-friendly?” The receipts are public. During his live satellite performance at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards from Yankee Stadium, Bad Bunny kissed a male dancer (and also a female dancer). That moment set off plenty of debate then, but imagine it at the intermission of the most-watched broadcast in North America. Again, this is a choice with eyes wide open. So what’s the league up to? Since 2019, Roc Nation has helped steer the halftime slot, and it has steadily nudged the show from greatest-hits nostalgia toward a cultural statement. Pick an artist who has attacked ICE crackdowns, who boosts Trump’s opponents, whose shows include gender and sexually fluid staging, and you are not signalling “stick to sports.” You’re signalling that the NFL is happy to make a point about who belongs at the centre of American spectacle — and who doesn’t. .EDITORIAL: Christianity is under siege while Liberals look away.There’s also the commerce. Bad Bunny is a ratings rocket as the most-streamed in the world for years, with sell-out tours, and a massive Puerto Rico residency. That’s precisely why this isn’t some fringe booking. The league is betting it can both cash in and lay down a cultural marker. If that marker also happens to tweak President Trump, who’s promised mass deportations and an agency whose presence scares a chunk of the artist’s fanbase, well, consider that an extra point. You can applaud the move as brave or blast it as baiting. But don’t pretend it’s apolitical. The NFL has thrown a flag on Trump’s field. And in February, it’s sending in one of his loudest cultural critics to dance on the 50-yard line.
