The morning after the Seahawks became Super Bowl champions, people spent Monday trying to figure out who had won the other widely talked about competition of the night: Dueling halftime performances between Bad Bunny and conservative darling Kid Rock. Nielsen figures won’t be released until Tuesday on how many people tuned in to watch Bad Bunny, a U.S. citizen born in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico and the NFL’s superstar performer. Most years the show attracts more than 100 million viewers. The conservative organization Turning Point USA arranged the competing performance, and spokesperson Andrew Kolvet told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade on Sunday evening that “at one point” roughly 10 million people were watching the Kid Rock show live across all social media platforms. The organization didn't release exact figures when asked on Monday morning, though at one point roughly 5 million people were watching the show live on YouTube.
The race to capture national attention during the most widely watched event in the U.S. has been cast as a competition to define the country given that Turning Point organized its performance with President Donald Trump’s blessing to protest the NFL picking the star from Puerto Rico as its headliner.
The performances come at a polarizing time in the U.S., with stark lines drawn between proponents of Trump’s immigration policies and the people opposing large-scale immigration crack downs in American cities. Within weeks of the Super Bowl, two white Americans citizens were killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, a city that was last in the global spotlight during protests over the murder of George Floyd.
Bad Bunny has been a vocal and outspoken opponent of ICE, although he made no mention of the agency during his performance. Kid Rock is one of the president’s highest profile celebrity allies.
Turning Point calls performance a ‘massive success’
The “All American Halftime Show” headlined by Kid Rock, included a video and photo tribute to the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot last year on a Utah college campus.
The program lasted roughly 30 minutes and also featured country musicians Brantley Gilbert, Gabby Barrett and Lee Brice. Several performers declared that the alternative show represented “the real America,” while Kolvet told Fox News that the viewership amounted to a “massive” success.
“People are paying attention,” he said.
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The TPUSA show also aired on numerous right-leaning broadcast networks, including OAN News and Trinity Broadcasting Network. The 10 million viewers Kolvet estimated tuned in would be dwarfed by previous Super Bowl viewership.
Kendrick Lamar set the record with 133.5 million viewers of his 2025 halftime show, topping Usher’s 2024 performance that drew 123.4 million.
Bad Bunny uses symbolism to emphasize unity
Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio and who became the most streamed artist of 2025, brought unabashedly Puerto Rican culture to Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
His theme was unity and he danced and sang across the field under a screen reading “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.” Many songs he performed showcased his 2025 album “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” the first all-Spanish album to win a Grammy for album of the year.
The show didn't shy away from Puerto Rico's most pressing political inequalities, and included direct references to the island's chronic power outages and the fight for sovereignty from the United States.
Trump, who skipped the Super Bowl and said he wouldn't watch Bad Bunny's performance, called Sunday's halftime show “one of the worst, EVER” in a post on Truth Social.
“It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence,” Trump wrote. “This ‘Show’ is just a ‘slap in the face’ to our Country, which is setting new standards and records every single day.”
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