While those familiar with these pages and the over five million who opted to watch Turning Point USA’s counter-programming will almost certainly disagree, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell thinks the Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime show went great.
According to the New York Post’s Charles Gasparino, a media executive who spoke with Goodell after the show, says the commish was thoroughly pleased with how the show came off.
“Goodell thought it was great,” the executive said. “He said it was the right thing to do because we (NFL) have to expand our demographic,” the source who spoke with Goodell continued. “He said it was purely a business decision.”
The commissioner’s reported words confirm for many the fears and suspicions widely held about the league’s decision to feature the Spanish-language Puerto Rican rapper on the biggest stage the NFL can offer: that the league is aggressively courting audiences beyond its traditional English-speaking American fanbase. They don’t care about angering traditional fans because they believe you’ll watch the games regardless.
While there may be some truth to the idea that traditional fans tune in to games, the commish’s analysis may run into trouble with the Super Bowl halftime show.
As demonstrated during Bad Bunny’s performance, fans are more than capable of turning the big game off during halftime and watching something that values them.
“For most of the show on YouTube, the viewership hovered between 4-5 million fans as TPUSA produced a 25-minute halftime show featuring Kid Rock, Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice, and Gabby Barrett. The feed topped 12 million total views by the end of Super Bowl 60,” Sporting News reported.
“An additional 3 million viewers started watching the show on TPUSA’s X page, which was later taken down due to an unspecified copyright concern.”
While the Super Bowl numbers are higher, that is a significant number of eyeballs leaving the Super Bowl, and those numbers could grow if TPUSA, or other center-right organizations, decide to consistently offer entertainment focused on the NFL’s traditional fan base during the halftime show.
Conversely, if Bad Bunny’s fans aren’t already football fans, why would they tune in for anything other than the halftime show? Sure, the network might get a spike in viewership late in the second quarter, and that might continue until the early third, but is the league really “expanding its demographic” with that?
Are those same Bad Bunny fans going to suddenly start watching a Week 7 game between the Chargers and Falcons because the NFL put their favorite rapper on at halftime? And is it worth further alienating your traditional fan base on the off chance that they would?
That seems like an awful big gamble for the league.
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