{"id":764745,"date":"2026-02-20T14:52:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T14:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/764745\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T14:52:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T14:52:16","slug":"nfls-roger-goodell-saw-bad-bunnys-super-bowl-halftime-show-as-business-decision-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/764745\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL’s Roger Goodell saw Bad Bunny\u2019s Super Bowl halftime show as \u2018business decision\u2019: sources\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell hasn\u2019t said much in public about Bad Bunny\u2019s controversial Super Bowl halftime performance<\/a> \u2013 but in private he\u2019s taking a victory lap, On The Money has learned.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoodell thought it was great,\u201d said one media executive who spoke to the commish in the aftermath of the performance.<\/p>\n

The woke spectacle<\/a> drew significant ratings, although they dropped by the minute as the Spanish-only rap routine unfolded. The 31-year-old left-wing rapper from Puerto Rico \u2013 aka Benito Antonio Ocasio \u2013 took jabs at the president\u2019s rollback of illegal immigration and preached Pan American multiculturalism during the biggest game of our country\u2019s most popular sport.<\/p>\n

\"CollageNFL Commissioner Roger Goodell hasn\u2019t said much in public about Bad Bunny\u2019s controversial Super Bowl halftime performance \u2013 but in private he\u2019s taking a victory lap. Jack Forbes \/ NY Post Design<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said it was the right thing to do because we (NFL) have to expand our demographic,\u201d according to the source who spoke with Goodell. \u201cHe said it was purely a business decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

As we have reported, Goodell\u2019s embrace of woke policies \u2013 virtue signaling about social justice in endzone displays and on helmets, using DEI to hire coaches and league personnel, and picking for Bad Bunny for the big game\u2019s halftime show \u2013 is designed to expand football devotees beyond the typical right-of-center male that still dominates its fan base.<\/p>\n

He thinks the gambit will bring in more women and minorities as viewers; that means more people buying expensive NFL sponsored merchandise, filling stadiums and remaining glued to the TV sets. He believes his core audience is so hooked on the game \u2014 because of its hard-hitting plays and a steady diet of addictive sport-gambling opportunities \u2013 that they will keep tuning in.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCharles Gasparino<\/p>\n

And it doesn\u2019t matter how much progressivism he shoved down their collective throats.<\/p>\n

An NFL rep has not returned our repeated attempts to for a comment on the entire Bad Bunny imbroglio. So I\u2019ll let my sources who follow the sport-business world fill the gaps.<\/p>\n

First, Goodell billed Bad Bunny as a performance that will \u201cunite\u201d football fans. In his words: \u201cThis platform is used to unite people and to be able to bring people together with their creativity, with their talent, and to be able to use this moment to do that. I think artists in the past have done that. \u201cI think Bad Bunny understands that and I think he\u2019ll have a great performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BadBad Bunny\u2019s performance was \u201cpurely a business decision,\u201d a source said. REUTERS<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat,\u201d as it turned out, was a show by a singer whose lyrics were hard to decipher because he was often mumbling and in a foreign language. If you don\u2019t believe me, check out the footage of confused people in the stands while Bad Bunny did his thing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUniting\u201d is another canard. If anything, the performance emerged as yet another episode in the ongoing culture war, maybe the most unfortunate outcome for something as simple as watching a football game. Liberals like former president Barack Obama lauded the performance for its alleged underlying message of inclusion; conservatives saw it as a farce directed at Trump and his supporters (around 50% of the country) who reject multiculturalism and Bad Bunny\u2019s open-borders politics.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCharlie Gasparino has his finger on the pulse of where business, politics and finance meet\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up to receive On The Money by Charlie Gasparino in your inbox every Thursday.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Goodell has made no secret that he wants to expand the NFL into Latin America so maybe there\u2019s a method to his madness. Or maybe not; as we reported the game peaked at 137,826 viewers during the 15 minutes which spanned the second quarter of the game. It was all downhill from there during Bad Bunny\u2019s pretty bad rapping that is until the third quarter began and rating turned positive again.<\/p>\n

Maybe people hated Bad Bunny\u2019s underlying message, or maybe they just couldn\u2019t understand what he was saying. Or maybe it\u2019s time for Roger Goodell to realize the customer is always right and abandoning your core consumer is always a risky bet. If it weren\u2019t, Bud Light, which got clobbered with its commercial featuring a trans woman in a bubble bath, would still be our No. 1 beer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell hasn\u2019t said much in public about Bad Bunny\u2019s controversial Super Bowl halftime performance \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":764746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[70481,11963,7,6,49656,1902,505],"class_list":["post-764745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-bad-bunny","tag-business","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-on-the-money","tag-roger-goodell","tag-super-bowl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116103530573251441","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764745","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=764745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}