The NFL won’t be pulling a fast one on Bad Bunny.
Meeting with reporters on Wednesday after the completion of quarterly ownership meetings, Commissioner Roger Goodell said that the decision to make Bad Bunny the lead performer at the Super Bowl LX halftime show will not be reconsidered.
“It’s carefully thought through,” Goodell said, via the Associated Press. “I’m not sure we’ve ever selected an artist where we didn’t have some blowback or criticism. It’s pretty hard to do when you have literally hundreds of millions of people that are watching.”
He’s right about that. It’s impossible to make everyone happy. The bigger the audience, the larger the vocal minority will be.
“He’s one of the leading and most popular entertainers in the world,” Goodell added. “That’s what we try to achieve. It’s an important stage for us. It’s an important element to the entertainment value.”
Still, the league knew or should have known there would be a political reaction. And the NFL deserves credit for potentially alienating those who have strenuously objected to the selection. In past situations, the NFL has made decisions aimed at placating that same political demographic.
Throw in the requirement that the pending media deal with Disney/ESPN requires approval of the administration, and it would have been very easy for the NFL to exercise its broad discretion in a way aimed at ensuring that the broad governmental discretion would be exercised in the league’s favor.
The other issue is the very real possibility that an alternative halftime show will be available on a sufficiently large platform to siphon away a noticeable chunk of the American audience. Turning Point USA has announced that it plans to produce a show. If it’s broadcast on a widely-distributed TV network, it will be very easy for viewers to change the channel to wherever the other show may land.
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