{"id":725118,"date":"2026-02-03T01:58:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T01:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/725118\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T01:58:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T01:58:15","slug":"nfl-chose-bad-bunny-to-unite-people-wants-safe-super-bowl-amid-ice-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/725118\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL chose Bad Bunny to ‘unite people,’ wants ‘safe’ Super Bowl amid ICE fears"},"content":{"rendered":"

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell championed Grammy Award-winner Bad Bunny<\/a>\u2018s ability to \u201cunite people\u201d after the artist condemned President Donald Trump\u2019s ICE raids on America\u2019s citizens ahead of his Super Bowl halftime appearance.<\/p>\n

\u201cBad Bunny \u2026 is one of the greatest artists in the world, and that\u2019s one of the reasons we chose him,\u201d Goodell said Monday at his annual pre-Super Bowl press conference. \u201cBut the other reason is he understood the platform he was on, and that this platform is used to unite people and to be able to bring people together with their creativity, with their talents and to be able to use this moment to do that. I think artists in the past have done that. I think Bad Bunny understands that, and I think he\u2019ll have a great performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goodell made his comment when asked whether he expected Bad Bunny or anyone else to make further statements against the current state of the country at the Super Bowl. The commissioner seemed to be implicitly asking the musician to leave the most controversial parts of his protest at the Grammys.<\/p>\n

On Sunday night, when Bad Bunny\u2019s DeB\u00cd TiRAR M\u00e1S FOToS became the first Spanish-language album to win album of the year, he got on stage and said: \u201cBefore I say thanks to God, I\u2019m gonna say: ICE out. We\u2019re not savage, we\u2019re not animals, we\u2019re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

There had been reports in recent weeks that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was planning immigrations operations at Sunday\u2019s Super Bowl, but in a Monday memo first reported by the Washington Post<\/a>, the Bay Area\u2019s host committee informed elected officials in San Francisco, Santa Clara and San Jose in a memo that \u201cthere are no planned ICE immigration enforcement operations associated with SBLX.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goodell assured the priority was to create a \u201csafe environment\u201d for everyone at the big game. He did not mention ICE by name, even though he was asked about it, but the implication was that Goodell understood their presence would compromise the league\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecurity is obviously one of the things we focus on the most,\u201d Goodell said. \u201cIt\u2019s a SEAR One level event that involves unique assets at the federal level, state level and local level all working together. I see no change in that in the preparations for this Super Bowl. We have not seen that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working with all three of those levels and doing everything we can to make sure it\u2019s a safe environment, and the federal government is a big part of that,\u201d he added, \u201cincluding this administration and every other administration before that. So I anticipate we\u2019ll continue to do the work to make it the safest event.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bad Bunny, who was born in Puerto Rico, has publicly opposed Trump and his policies before.<\/p>\n

During the 2024 presidential campaign, he supported former Vice President Kamala Harris after a comedian at Trump\u2019s Madison Square Garden rally mocked Puerto Rico as a \u201cfloating island of garbage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Days later, Bad Bunny posted a video showcasing Puerto Rico\u2019s beaches and artists, captioned simply: \u201cgarbage.\u201d And he has remained vocal since Trump took office.<\/p>\n

Sunday will be the biggest stage he ever graces. His idea of uniting people could just mean music. Or it could mean another statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NFL commissioner Roger Goodell championed Grammy Award-winner Bad Bunny\u2018s ability to \u201cunite people\u201d after the artist condemned President…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[70481,7,6,1902,16165],"class_list":{"0":"post-725118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-bad-bunny","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-roger-goodell","12":"tag-super-bowl-lx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}