Article now states “Editor's note: This story has been updated to remove a reference to viewership numbers, which had not been released as of Monday. ”
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Bad Bunny Super Bowl Halftime
- Thread starter TheBigA
- Start date
In Living Color is the reason the modern Super Bowl halftime show exists. The years before the In Living Color special, they had a marching band. The year after, Michael Jackson.
I don't see the NFL seeking to emulate TPUSA.
Florida congressman calls Bad Bunny's show 'disgusting.' What's next?
U.S. Rep. Randy Fine of Florida called Bad Bunny's Super Bowl LX performance "disgusting" and "illegal."
Republican calls for "dramatic action" against NFL, NBC after halftime show
The dispute underscores how the NFL’s showcase event has become a cultural flashpoint.
www.newsweek.com
Congressman issues baseless threat against NBC over Bad Bunny halftime show
The lawmaker, Rep. Randy Fine of Florida, is urging the FCC to issue fines against NBC, the NFL and Bad Bunny over the halftime performance.
thedesk.net
Here is a crazy turn of events a member of Congress is calling on the FCC to investigate the NFL and NBC over the Super Bowl Halftime Concert. KNTV San Jose has to watch out for this FCC threat given that the game took place in the area. The Congressman ordering the FCC investigation is Rep Randy Fine of Florida.
Per Samba, which rates households and not, as Nielsen does, persons:
"Our latest viewership insights reveal: 48.6M U.S. households tuned in to #SuperBowl LX, representing a 13% decrease from last year's game 26.5M U.S. households watched #BadBunny's #halftime performance, down 39% from Kendrick Lamar's 2025 showWhile viewership declined year-over-year, the Super Bowl remains one of TV's most powerful cultural moments, delivering tens of millions of engaged viewers in an increasingly fragmented media landscape.For brands and marketers, understanding these viewing patterns is essential for maximizing campaign impact and connecting with audiences when they're most engaged.Want to dive deeper into Super Bowl viewership trends and what they mean for your media strategy? Stay tuned for more Samba insights coming out of the big game in the next few days and reach out to learn how Samba’s real-time insights can inform your next big play.
"Our latest viewership insights reveal: 48.6M U.S. households tuned in to #SuperBowl LX, representing a 13% decrease from last year's game 26.5M U.S. households watched #BadBunny's #halftime performance, down 39% from Kendrick Lamar's 2025 showWhile viewership declined year-over-year, the Super Bowl remains one of TV's most powerful cultural moments, delivering tens of millions of engaged viewers in an increasingly fragmented media landscape.For brands and marketers, understanding these viewing patterns is essential for maximizing campaign impact and connecting with audiences when they're most engaged.Want to dive deeper into Super Bowl viewership trends and what they mean for your media strategy? Stay tuned for more Samba insights coming out of the big game in the next few days and reach out to learn how Samba’s real-time insights can inform your next big play.
https://x.com/samba_tv/status/20210...t/assets/html/tweet-5.html2021007799476682972
TPUSA is a lot of things. The event they produced was not political.
Fox more than 30 years ago offered counterprogramming to the SB Halftime Show. Your assertion in the final sentence is simply untrue.
Super Bowl counterprogramming - Wikipedia
It goes back to 1992.
It's hard to see Jay-Z going forward with any sort of country halftime show, no matter how popular the artists are in the US, even if the age group is advertiser-desirable. There's an obvious problem with spotlighting the genre's biggest current star, Morgan Wallen, and while Zach Bryan also fills stadiums and sells albums, radio ignores him and he is a non-entity outside of the genre. Jelly Roll? According to the blog "Saving Country Music," he's uttered the forbidden word as well, although he has more rap cred (and actual associations within the hip-hop community) than Wallen does. Probably not on Roc Nation's radar either. Shaboozey? He's had a crossover hit, and he's Black, but way too new to headline a Super Bowl halftime show. And none of these acts move the meter in the countries the NFL wants to get a stronger foothold in.
And one more time, with feeling...TPUSA is a political action group. They don't do anything that is "not political." Claiming the show was not political is like saying the Republican (or Democratic) National Convention is "not political."
It was explicitly (and poorly) planned as counter-programming to the (allegedly) "woke" Superbowl halftime show, with a white conservative headliner contrasted against a brown liberal performer in San Francisco. It was literally aired (pre-recorded) at the same time as the big game halftime show, and marketed as an alternative to said show, pretending that somehow it was "All American" vs the scary "immigrant" presentation at the Superbowl.
Some of the fallout from the Bad Bunny halftime show:
www.nbcnews.com
She obviously missed Lady Gaga.
Jill Zarin fired from 'Real Housewives' revival show after controversial Bad Bunny comments
The former "Real Housewives of New York" cast member posted an Instagram video criticizing the Puerto Rican artist's halftime show for having "literally no white people.”
www.nbcnews.com
She obviously missed Lady Gaga.
The show began with Pete Hegseth, who is obviously political. The final song was a tribute to Charlie Kirk, who is obviously political.
128.2M viewers for the Bad Bunny halftime show.
www.tmz.com
www.nbcnews.com
Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Halftime Show Draws Over 128 Million Viewers
The chaos and controversy surrounding Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime performance did NOT hurt the viewership numbers -- 128.2 million people tuned in to watch!
www.tmz.com
Super Bowl 60 draws nearly 125 million viewers in slight dip from last year's game
About 127 million viewers watched the game on Fox in 2025.
www.nbcnews.com
I believe the two teams had a lot to do with the viewership. I know for me, I didn't have a dog in the fight, and didn't even have a favorite player involved. So I wasn't as motivated by this game as I might have been under different circumstances. From a TV perspective, it's Market #10 vs Market #12. Certainly better than if it was Jacksonville vs. Charlotte.
What was interesting was that more people watched the halftime show than the game. Especially given the competition of halftime shows.
Interesting, NBC's reporting indicates the number of viewers for Bad Bunny's halftime show were apparently 3 million higher than the number of viewers for the game itself.
Also, another journalistic fail for CBS News in their rush to be first to report the numbers, and getting it wrong.
Also, another journalistic fail for CBS News in their rush to be first to report the numbers, and getting it wrong.
Interestingly, the rating for the entire bowl was the lowest ever except for the two Covid years of '21 and '22. See Super Bowl television ratings - Wikipedia and scroll down to this table:
"Rating" is the percentage of the universe, meaning that on Sunday 39.4% of all people in the U.S. watched at least a moment of the bowl show. Counting "persons" is not a good measure over time, as the population increases. So, looking at "rating" we can see what percentage of all people watched.
As to the halftime, here it is...
They were citing Samba, the alternative TV ratings service that measures households, not persons, and which is gaining acceptance among time buyers. Samba is another ratings service and is equally valid.
Here they are from Samba TV
Note that based on households, the halftime had half the delivery of the game itself.
Here is more about Samba TV.
It's been steadily declining, likely due to non-broadcast streaming. Stranger Things airs on Netflix Sunday nights.
As you said, it hit bottom during covid, bounced back, and then slipped back down. Had the Bears, Rams or Niners been in it, things may have been better.
The Kansas City years also brought the Taylor Swift fans to the game. Never underestimate the Taylor factor.
And she's a racist. Most Puerto Ricans are ethnically Hispanic and racially white. Like many from more southern European heritage (Italy, Greece, the former Yugoslavia, Spain, Southern France, Portugual) they are not as pale white but are certainly not Black, Asian or Native American, the only other races that the Census and most areas of science and ethnic studies recognize.Some of the fallout from the Bad Bunny halftime show:
Jill Zarin fired from 'Real Housewives' revival show after controversial Bad Bunny comments
The former "Real Housewives of New York" cast member posted an Instagram video criticizing the Puerto Rican artist's halftime show for having "literally no white people.”
She obviously missed Lady Gaga.
As an example, Nielsen rates Puerto Rico and they do not offer any racial breakout of the population there because to do so has been considered in itself racist as it demands determining at which point is a person not white enough to be white.
In the 1975 FCC license renewal cycle in Puerto Rico, I instigated a petition to the FCC to eliminate the "race" analysis of staff members as discriminatory and racist. We wrote, as the Asociación de Radiodifusores de Puerto Rico, and requested that requirement be eliminated for all stations there. The FCC agreed.
The Nielsen ratings include all outlets including streams and digital properties, using mixed methodology.
"For Super Bowl LX in 2026, Nielsen measures total audience viewership across the primary English broadcast network (NBC), Spanish-language broadcast (Telemundo), streaming platforms (Peacock, NFL digital properties), and out-of-home viewing (bars,1 restaurants). This uses "Big Data + Panel" (45M+ homes) and new, expanded wearable devices for tracking"
"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."
controversy attracts ratings, more hate watching Bad Bunny than the TPUSA show, would the TPUSA show beat Up With People or Elvis Presto? many liberals hate listened to Limbaugh and hate watch Fox News, Trump hate watches mainstream news and late night shows, no one watched Married With Children before that lady related to Mitt Romney from Michigan launched a failed boycott campaign, and people still who think SNL and The Simpsons haven't been funny in years and beg for them to be cancelled still watch those shows
these Seahawks and Patriots are still lesser known teams, a boring game didn't help
Wait…is the suggestion the millions upon millions of viewers were mostly hate watchers? Beyond the idiot-in-chief, do we really think that drove the numbers?
Many more didn’t and don’t.
Rather than doing his job
The show launched on a brand new network and started building. The boycott got attention but the idea it wasn’t growing its viewership and that the laughable boycott was the main driver of its success has no basis.
A vocal, very vocal, yet small contingent that just likes to scream and throw tantrums.