NFL commissioner responds to Bad Bunny critics, says he will “bring people together”

Posted On February 8, 2026February 8, 2026

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has shown his support for Bad Bunny, ahead of his performance at the Super Bowl halftime show on February 8th.

Bad Bunny will take to what many regard as the world’s biggest stage halfway through the championship game of the 2025 NFL season. The Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots will face off at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.

Bad Bunny will be the first male solo Latin artist to perform at the halftime slot, as well as the first to perform their show entirely in Spanish.

As such, Donald Trump has lashed out at the decision to platform the Grammy-winning musician, deeming the choice “crazy” as he had “never heard of” Bad Bunny. The President has confirmed he won’t be in attendance at the show.

Additionally, last year, Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, threatened that there would be a large presence of ICE agents at the event, warning, “There is nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people who are in this country illegally.”

Despite this, Goodell has shown support for Bad Bunny, sharing at the Super Bowl news conference that he is “one of the great artists in the world, and that’s one of the reasons we chose him.”

As per Deseret, he went on, “But 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.”

Goodell finished strongly, “And I think artists in the past have done that. I think Bad Bunny understands that, and I think he’ll have a great performance.”

Previously, when featured on the late-night television show, Saturday Night Live, Bad Bunny stirred up criticism with the joke that Americans should learn Spanish in order to understand his performance at the Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl will also see Green Day take to the stage in California prior to the game kicking off; the band used the Super Bowl pre-party to call out ICE, and Jeffrey Epstein.

In protest of the political beliefs of Bad Bunny and Green Day, the right-wing organisation Turning Point USA, founded by the late Charlie Kirk, will broadcast an alternative Super Bowl halftime show headlined by Kid Rock.

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