Staff Reports
Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime left a lot of Americans scratching their heads and the NFL looking like it’s more interested in culture-war signaling than putting on a show that unites the country. Bad Bunny’s set leaned heavily into Spanish-language material and Puerto Rican imagery, a bold choice that some celebrated but left many viewers — including plenty of Latinos — saying they couldn’t follow what was being said or why the league thought this was the moment to make that choice.
Let’s be clear: Latino opinion was not monolithic. For many in the community the halftime was a long-overdue spotlight on Hispanic culture and pride, and those viewers felt seen and vindicated by the spectacle. At the same time, native Spanish speakers across the Americas flooded social feeds saying Bad Bunny’s delivery, regional slang, and the live audio mix made the lyrics hard to understand — hardly the definition of broad, national appeal.
The broadcast itself didn’t help. Numerous viewers complained about muddy audio and the lack of subtitles for an event watched by tens of millions, a basic accessibility step the NFL could have taken if it truly wanted to include everyone in the moment. When a halftime show leans into a language most of the audience doesn’t speak, the least you can do is provide captions so ordinary Americans can follow along instead of being left out of the party.
And this wasn’t some accidental choice by a clueless booking team — Bad Bunny has been an outspoken cultural figure, and the halftime finish line included an explicitly continental “together we are America” message that was political by design. Conservatives aren’t mad because of a different sound or style; we’re pointing out that the NFL keeps making high-profile choices that stoke division rather than celebrate traditions that bind fans from every background.
Polling in the run-up to the game showed this would be a divisive pick: support tracked strongly along partisan lines, which should have warned the league that this wasn’t a neutral, crowd-pleasing choice. The NFL’s job is to put on a halftime that brings people together, not to play culture-war bouncer for a particular faction or to assume every viewer is on the same page about language and symbolism.
Patriots and fans of real inclusion should ask for two commonsense fixes: make major broadcasts accessible to everyone with translations and captions, and stop letting the league’s brand become a vehicle for signaling that alienates half the audience. If the NFL wants to survive as America’s game, it needs to remember the simple truth: respect for fans and for shared traditions will always matter more than woke applause lines.
Hardworking Americans deserve entertainment that respects their time, their traditions, and their patriotism. We can celebrate cultural representation without pretending it’s progress when it’s executed in a way that excludes vast swaths of viewers; demand better from the NFL, and demand halftime shows that actually unite the country instead of dividing it.
