In what remains one of the last shows of force from the dwindling American monoculture, the Super Bowl Halftime Show still manages to feel like a national ritual. Next year, that ritual is expected to unfold almost entirely in Spanish—and not everyone’s happy about it.
Bad Bunny’s booking for Super Bowl LX, scheduled for February, didn’t surprise anyone familiar with his music. He’s the most-streamed male artist in the world and a global performer whose recent 31-show residency injected nearly $700 million into Puerto Rico’s struggling economy. As a Puerto Rican, he’s also an American citizen—a fact that still seems to surprise some.
During his Saturday Night Live monologue last weekend, days after being announced as headliner, the superstar, whose real name is Benito Martinez Ocasio, switched to Spanish to declare the moment a win for all Latinos. “If you didn’t understand what I just said,” he told the audience, “you have four months to learn.” It was delivered with a smile—but heard as a provocation by millions.
The backlash was immediate. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene called his monologue “perverse” and demanded Congress pass her bill making English the official national language before the game (Trump has already declared it so, in an early executive order). Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem promised ICE agents would be “all over” the NFL championship game, which is being held outside San Francisco. On Fox News, Tomi Lahren claimed Bad Bunny “hates America, hates President Trump, hates the English language.” Even the president himself weighed in, calling the NFL’s pick “absolutely ridiculous” before admitting that he’d never heard of one of the biggest artists in the world.
“If you’re thinking about music culture right now, he’s at the top of the summit,” said Amílcar Barreto, a political science professor at Northeastern University. “But by doing it in Spanish, he’s challenging the idea that English is the only legitimate language in American life. That’s why it reads like a provocation—it’s not just music.”
The symbolism isn’t subtle. Bad Bunny refused to tour the continental U.S. after his latest album, Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana, shattered streaming records, citing fears for his fans’ safety amid intensified ICE crackdowns. The same artist who performed Safaera in drag and makeup, who openly supports Puerto Rican independence, and who has called out the American history of colonialism and police violence in his work.
“From how he speaks to the causes he supports to where he performs—it’s all intentional,” Barreto added.
‘Learn English’ vs. ‘Learn Spanish’
That reckoning has been a long time coming. Among the MAGA movement and conservative media, the backlash over Bad Bunny isn’t just about language—it’s about the fear that something foundational is being replaced. “White liberals…explode with cheers over the replacement of their own culture,” wrote conservative activist Drew Pavlou on X, calling the halftime announcement “a slap in the face” to traditional American identity.
But as Barreto points out, the United States has never had an official language—and Spanish has been spoken in America longer than English. “Bad Bunny’s all-Spanish halftime show lands squarely in the middle of that dare,” he said. “For the English-only crowd, it’s a provocation. For the bilingual and bicultural, it’s a confirmation of something they already knew: America sounds different now.”
Latinos now make up nearly 20 percent of the U.S. population and are the nation’s largest ethnic minority. More than 43 million Americans speak Spanish at home. And while that growth brings pride, it also brings pressure. Bad Bunny’s immense popularity comes at a moment when Spanish itself has become a marker of risk. Since the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on racial profiling by ICE in September, many Latino citizens—natural-born and naturalized—say they’ve begun carrying their passports to prove their status and have adjusted how they speak in public spaces.
Bad Bunny has acknowledged that fear directly. He skipped the U.S. leg of his own tour, despite having one of the most-streamed albums in the country. Instead, he staged a record-breaking 31-show residency in Puerto Rico, livestreamed by Amazon and timed to coincide with the anniversary of Hurricane Maria, which devastated the territory during Trump’s first term. As The Atlantic’s Xochitl Gonzalez wrote, “Bad Bunny is not just a Spanish-speaking artist. He’s a political one.”
For decades, conservative lawmakers have tried to codify English as the official language of the United States, backed by groups like U.S. English and ProEnglish. These efforts peaked in the 1980s and ’90s but largely failed at the federal level, unable to overcome constitutional hurdles and demographic shifts. Today, more than 30 states have English-only laws on the books—but Spanish continues to grow in everyday life. And when that language shift becomes central to a national ritual like the Super Bowl, discomfort can easily spill into a full-blown culture war.
Some conservative and MAGA commentators have put a point on it. If Spanish is taking over the Super Bowl, the logic goes, what’s next? For a movement long animated by “replacement theory” anxieties, the symbolism feels personal.
“Good work guys. Very smart idea. I’m sure that will lower tensions,” Pavlou wrote on his X.
Betting on Benito
For the NFL, the booking of Bad Bunny for its premiere event is less about making a political statement than drawing a crowd.
The league may have gambled on controversy, but it didn’t gamble on popularity. Bad Bunny’s audience is young, Latino, and global—the exact demographic the league needs as its core viewership ages. The median NFL viewer in 2023 was 50 years old. The halftime show is one of its few tools left to reach the next generation.
“It’s a smart move,” said Brandon Ross, media analyst at LightShed Partners. “The NFL knows that music can expand its audience in ways the game alone can’t.”
The league is already expanding internationally, with games in London, Munich, Mexico City—and soon São Paulo and Madrid. Latinos already make up a growing share of U.S. NFL fans, with 39 million tuning in annually. The goal now is to grow that base—and sell them on the spectacle.
It also doesn’t hurt that Super Bowl ads run more than $7 million per 30 seconds. For brands chasing younger, more diverse audiences, a reggaeton superstar with cultural clout is less a controversy than a marketing goldmine.
If it feels political, it’s because in 2025, everything is political — identity very much included. But at its core, the NFL’s decision to hand over the stage to Bad Bunny is also a safe bet: people might not like it—but they’ll still watch. Whether it’s to celebrate, to complain, or just to see what happens when the biggest TV event of the year briefly goes Spanish.