There are hundreds of different ways you can bet on the Super Bowl, but for millions of people around the world, it’s all about the Halftime Show – excuse us, the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show. Bad Bunny will be this year’s headline act on Sunday, February 8 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California; the Puerto Rican performer is a strong candidate to break the TV audience record of 133.5 million viewers that Kendrick Lamar set last year.
Here at Bodog Sportsbook, we’ve already started rolling out our Super Bowl Halftime Show props, beginning with the kind of headwear Bad Bunny will have on for his first number – the classic Puerto Rican pava straw hat being the +120 favorite at press time. It could be the smart choice; the pava is traditionally worn by local farmers, and Bad Bunny sported one during last year’s 30-show residency at the Jose Miguel Agrelot Coliseum in San Juan.
Then again, Bad Bunny hasn’t been all that cozy with the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), which also uses the pava as part of their iconography. Instead, he’s supported efforts to “break the duopoly” between the PPD and the New Progressive Party (PNP), the two main ruling parties in Puerto Rico. Will this affect Bad Bunny’s choice of headwear for Super Bowl LX? It might, given the highly-charged politics surrounding this year’s Halftime Show.
These are the kind of things you have to consider when you bet the Super Bowl Halftime props at Bodog. To get you ready for this year’s Big Game, let’s take a closer look at the musical journey that Bad Bunny has taken to the biggest stage in all of sports entertainment.
From Vega Baja to the World
Bad Bunny was born Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio on March 10, 1994 in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, part of the larger San Juan metropolitan area, then raised in the Almirante Sur barrio of Vega Baja on the north-central coast. His parents would listen to salsa and merengue music, as well as the pop ballads of the day. Bad Bunny’s favourite artists growing up were Daddy Yankee, Tego Calderon, and the Godfather of Reggaeton, Vico C.
While the young Martinez developed his own rapping style, he also attended Catholic church with his mother and sang in the choir until age 13. But it was an earlier concert appearance as a child that gave Bad Bunny his name – he was forced to wear a rabbit costume, not unlike Ralphie Parker in A Christmas Story, and the nickname stuck.
The keys to understanding Bad Bunny’s rise can be found right here in Vega Baja. He didn’t “cross over” to become just another American pop star; Bad Bunny went global while keeping his centre of gravity in Puerto Rican culture, language, and rhythm. But changing demographics have also helped bring him to the fore in the United States. In the 2020 census, 18.7% of Americans identified as Hispanic or Latino, up from 16.3% in 2010.
How Bad Bunny Took Over
If you truly want to understand why Bad Bunny belongs in the same conversation as the biggest English-language popstars, it’s not because he copied their formula – it’s because he broke it. Instead of seeking mainstream approval by making a bilingual pivot with a big US feature, or a label campaign, Bad Bunny got the world to meet him where he was: in the cadence, the drum patterns, and the Caribbean bounce of his music.
Even if you don’t speak Spanish, you can still feel what Bad Bunny is all about: confidence, humour, longing, spite, joy, and that very modern kind of sadness that’s still somehow danceable. That emotional range is the reason Bad Bunny’s music doesn’t sound like a throwaway trend. It sounds like a language all its own.
As for the tools he used to get his message across, Bad Bunny uploaded his early tracks on SoundCloud, where his 2016 song “Diles” caught the ear of Puerto Rican record producer DJ Luian. Shortly thereafter, Luian signed Bad Bunny to his record label, Hear This Music (co-founded by the Mambo Kingz), and the next thing you know, Bad Bunny was No. 19 on the Hot Latin Songs chart with “Soy Peor.”
The Breakthrough
For every superstar performer who doesn’t fit the standard pop template, there’s a moment where the music industry woke up and saw that the audience was bigger than the category. Bad Bunny’s moment arrived in 2020 when El Ultimo Tour del Mundo debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, becoming the first completely Spanish-language album to top the chart.
If that No. 1 debut was the breakthrough, Un Verano Sin Ti was the takeover. This album wasn’t just popular, it was everywhere: clubs, parties, gyms, cars, patios, weddings, and outside your local convenience store at 2 AM. Un Verano Sin Ti was Spotify’s most-streamed album globally in both 2022 and 2023, with over 21 billion streams since its release according to ChartMasters.
Very few albums have that kind of staying power. It’s partly because Bad Bunny doesn’t stick to one genre; he moves seamlessly across reggaeton, pop, Latin trap and Caribbean rhythms while staying true to his roots, protecting him from listener fatigue and algorithmic churn. But it’s also because Bad Bunny has done a masterful job of promoting himself, and holding the spotlight now that he’s taken centre stage.
The Crossover
We’ve seen it a thousand times before: the singer-turned-actor, the singer-turned-company pitchman, all in an effort to get their faces in front of more eyeballs. But how often do they actually perform well at their new jobs – especially when they involve physical punishment? Consider Bad Bunny’s cameo in the 2022 David Leitch film Bullet Train, where he fights Brad Pitt; Forbes and L.A. Mag were both suitably impressed, and the only complaint from Bad Bunny fans was that his role was too small.
Then you have Bad Bunny’s appearances for World Wrestling Entertainment. A self-proclaimed wrestling junkie, Bad Bunny performed his song “Booker T” at the 2021 Royal Rumble, in a nod to the wrestler of the same name. Then he got in the ring himself later that year at WrestleMania 37, teaming with Puerto Rico’s own Damian Priest to defeat The Miz and John Morrison. That was easily one of the best celebrity performances in wrestling history, enough to earn Bad Bunny a match against Priest at the 2023 Backlash event in San Juan, where he earned the victory in front of 18,000 rabid fans.
These adventures helped Bad Bunny prepare for the roughest environment of them all: the fashion world. He launched a sneaker line with Adidas, and an underwear campaign with Calvin Klein; Bad Bunny also co-chaired the 2024 Met Gala alongside Zendaya, Chris Hemsworth, and fellow Super Bowl Halftime performer Jennifer Lopez. You can’t get much more A-list than that.
The Politics
With so much hype heading into this year’s Halftime Show, there are only two things that can stop Bad Bunny from breaking Kendrick Lamar’s record. The first is the game itself; will enough fans tune in to watch the Seattle Seahawks take on the New England Patriots? This isn’t Tom Brady’s Patriots anymore, although Drake Maye has already put up better stats as a sophomore than Brady ever did.
The second roadblock: Donald Trump. After the NFL announced that Bad Bunny would headline the Halftime Show, Trump called the decision “absolutely ridiculous.” Things only got worse when Green Day was announced as a supporting act, leading Trump to claim he’s boycotting the entire event. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem even said that ICE agents would be “all over” Levi’s Stadium for Super Bowl LX.
Why the vitriol? Aside from Trump’s long and acrimonious feud with the NFL, Bad Bunny has been openly critical of Trump since at least 2017, when Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico during Trump’s first term. He’s also been a staunch advocate for LGBTQ rights, describing his own sexuality as “fluid.” And Bad Bunny has put his money where his mouth is, both through his own philanthropy and his willingness to forgo any US dates on his 2025 Debi Tirar Mas Fotos World Tour, in order to protect his fans from ICE.
It’s possible that Trump and the MAGA movement will spoil things for Bad Bunny; Turning Point USA plans to run an “All-American Halftime Show” as counter-programming. Then again, all this controversy could lead to a Streisand Effect, and bring in even more viewers for Bad Bunny. Any way you slice it, the Super Bowl LX Halftime Show is going to be one for the history books.
Keep refreshing the NFL odds page at Bodog Sportsbook for updated Bad Bunny props, and we’ll see you at the Big Game.