NFL Should Pick Super Bowl Performers Who 'Stick To Music' | Burack

It was not until last February that the NFL regained its favorability rating among Republicans, which it had lost during the Colin Kaepernick kneeling saga in 2016 and 2017. It took nearly 10 years for those viewers to return. Yet just a year later, the league is daring those same fans to make another decision.

Earlier in the season, the NFL announced that Bad Bunny would perform at the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show. Bunny is a vocal critic of President Trump and his policies. In a September 2025 interview, he explained his decision to avoid U.S. stops on his world tour.

"There was the issue of f****** ICE could be outside my concert," he told i-D magazine. "And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about."

In October, Trump called the decision to pick Bad Bunny "absolutely ridiculous." The late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA foundation later announced plans to run an alternative halftime show for conservatives and Trump voters.

The NFL is now doubling down.

Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day holds a Donald Trump mask while performing onstage. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation)

Over the weekend, the league announced that Green Day would perform at the Super Bowl LX opening ceremony from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. The band, particularly lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong, is even more politically outspoken than Bad Bunny.

In Los Angeles on Saturday, Armstrong changed the lyrics of "American Idiot" from "I’m not part of the redneck agenda" to "I’m not part of the MAGA agenda."

He then took aim at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a performance of "Holiday." The song’s original lyrics include the line, "The representative from California has the floor." Armstrong instead said, "Ladies and gentlemen, Stephen Miller now has the floor."

On stage, Armstrong said the song was "anti-fascist" and was originally intended to criticize former President George W. Bush’s administration and its war in Iraq.

For what it is worth, the Iraq war was horrific. Unlike the ICE raids, the war was America Last. However, that is an opinion. And like Green Day’s views of ICE, political opinions are inherently divisive.

As the NFL learned in 2016, mixing politics with sports is bad for business. It cost the league double-digit favorability for nearly a decade.

The NFL is also uniquely vulnerable to political backlash because it is the most popular sport in the country. By contrast, leagues like the WNBA (openly liberal) and the UFC (openly conservative) face far less risk. Both are niche products with audiences that largely align with their political branding.

No one is arguing that these performances will tank Super Bowl viewership. They will not. But they could have an impact. And they will almost certainly alienate viewers. There is no reason for that.

The NFL was foolish to book Bad Bunny and even more buffoonish to double down on Green Day.

The Super Bowl is the biggest annual event in American culture. More people watch the Super Bowl than a presidential debate. The game is a celebration of America’s favorite pastime. It should not be used as a promotional vehicle for partisan politics.

We are not calling for overtly pro-Trump artists to perform in their place. We are calling for artists who do not attempt to overshadow the event with one-sided political messaging.

The NFL needs musical acts who, put bluntly, stick to music.

Prediction: The NFL’s favorability among Republicans is about to drop back near its 2016 and 2017 lows.