Bad Bunny's Football Spoke to the Politics of His Halftime Performance

The Super Bowl LX halftime show was one of the most controversial in recent memory, long before Bad Bunny even took the stage. When the hugely popular artist did finally perform, though, he did so largely in Spanish and celebrated the culture of his home in Puerto Rico throughout the performance.

The decision to perform in Spanish and celebrate Puerto Rico was embraced by some, but there were also plenty on the right who found themselves outraged by the performance. Bad Bunny's message was clear, though, even if there were some who didn't want to hear it, and that message extended to the football he used through much of the performance. Here's what we know about what it said.

Throughout his performance, Bad Bunny seemed to be intentionally celebrating both Puerto Rico, which is a territory of the United States, and the broader culture of the Western hemisphere. At one key moment late in his performance, he listed every country in North and South America. That message of unity was further reinforced by the message on his football, which said "Together, We Are America."

It wasn't exactly fiery political rhetoric, but it was a message that explicitly refuted the idea that some people are more American than others. Instead, Bad Bunny was arguing that the culture of Puerto Rico, specifically, and of every location across the western hemisphere, is crucial in creating the broader understanding of what it means to be American. It's a refutation of the notion some on the right have argued, which instead suggests that Americans can only be one thing.

At another moment in the performance, we could see that Bad Bunny was wearing a white jersey with the last name Ocasio on it, along with the number 64. The name Ocasio is part of Bad Bunny's real name, which is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio. The number 64 is a harder symbol to parse, although people on the internet have plenty of theories about what it might signify.

It could have been a nod to his mother's birth year, a reference to his 2020 album “El Último Tour del Mundo,” which became the first Spanish-language album to top the Billboard 200 in 64 years, or it's possible that the rapper just has an affinity for that number.

There were definitely parts of Bad Bunny's halftime show that were easy to parse, but the fact that there are also ambiguous elements worth arguing over suggests the show was ultimately a success.

Bad Bunny's show wasn't really all that political, except for its suggestion that Puerto Rican people, and really people of all kinds, should get a chance to write the story of America. That message of diversity and strength is one that has always bothered some people, but it hasn't always been the case that one of them is the president. That's the only thing that made this performance feel different.