There was a time when the Super Bowl was an American cultural event. It used to be an unofficial holiday where families and friends got together for a party regardless of which teams were playing. People would look forward to the big game to enjoy a unique part of American culture. Even years back, some looked forward to the halftime show as part of the Super Bowl package. Not so much now.
When the NFL last September announced it would feature Bad Bunny as the artist and refused to back down amid criticism, the lines were drawn for a cultural battle. As mentioned in previous posts, the NFL has been heading down this road for many years with other questionable halftime shows.
Bad Bunny’s performance entirely in Spanish was not by accident. The show was meant to attack American culture, which uses English as the official language. A majority of those who sat through the performance had no idea what Bad Bunny was singing. AP ran a story claiming thousands of people rushed to learn Spanish before viewing the show. Nothing smacks of propaganda and gaslighting as does AP’s article, reminiscent of COVID days.
The NFL will soon learn they may be too clever for their own good, and the Bad Bunny fiasco might prove the case. Turning Point USA dared to challenge the NFL’s monopoly on halftime entertainment by sponsoring an alternative musical show highlighting American culture, freedom, and faith. Possibly for the first time in the history of Super Bowl shows, the Bible and God were mentioned in song.
TP USA’s alternative show, first organized in October and put together quickly, has received a remarkable response. Views on YouTube alone reached 20 million individuals. That number does not include the social media sites such as X or Rumble, which also streamed the show. Numbers from the broadcast sources have not yet been compiled, and the total number of people who tuned in to the alternative halftime will be much higher than the first reported number.
The interest was so high that it broke a YouTube record for any live stream event. The response and the desire of many Americans to rebel against the woke NFL are evident in these numbers. Good people are sick and tired of having what should be a family event devolve into a commercial for raunchy and immoral lifestyles.
With these kinds of numbers, the NFL should take notice, but they probably won’t because they think their brand can survive this type of rebellion. What this event showed is that people are willing to turn off the NFL during the halftime break and seek out other programming. Once they have done this, it will not be hard to do it again. The migration from the game should worry the NFL and its owners.
It is actually a clever plan. Plenty of people with smartphones regularly flip between sites without even realizing it. So, moving from the game to an alternative halftime is not hard. By leveraging the tendency, TPUSA has made the alternative show a success.
TPUSA has already announced it is working on next year’s Super Bowl halftime show. With that amount of time for preparation, there is a strong possibility of drawing more people if the NFL continues to be recalcitrant about the artists it invites.
Let there be no mistake, another battle in the cultural revolution is happening in the middle of the Super Bowl. Hopefully, in the not-too-distant future, the NFL will host a halftime show everyone can see.