The Chaotic Super Bowl of 2026

CHEER. Bad Bunny performs for the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl was very eventful, and there were many things happening during the game, a wedding, a win for the Seahawks and of course, the halftime show. Photo courtesy of The New Yorker.

There were many events that occurred during the Super Bowl game. The Seahawks won, there was a streaker who ran across the field, a wedding, and an alternative halftime show that people who do not support Bad Bunny could watch.  

To start, Kid Rock did perform for the halftime show but it was prerecorded, only for certain channels, specifically Daily Wire+, Real America’s Voice, TBN, CHARGE!, The National News Desk, NTD.com and OAN News. The  alternative halftime show was set up to protest against Bad Bunny. It was called the “All American Halftime Show”, and it was inspired by Charlie Kirk, who criticized  halftime shows in the past. The people running the show made this idea to have an alternative halftime show to memorialize him. 

The Bad Bunny halftime show, on the other hand, was meant to represent Puerto Rican pride, celebrating his culture and heritage. The show promoted the idea that unity across America should also include North, Central, and South America, and that no one should be divided. 

The concert also represented resilience and social community, highlighting Puerto Rico’s history, struggles and strength. The grass in the show represented sugarcane fields. Sugarcane changed Puerto Rico’s economy in the early 1500s since they found the sugar cane, it was linked to slave labor because people worked in the fields to produce sugar for trade.

The culture war is interpreted as exclusionary rather than unifying, meaning it can be taken as a “we vs. them” instead of a bonding community where everyone is welcome. 

Lady Gaga performed with Bad Bunny for the song ‘Die With a Smile’ but made it a salsa version to show her support for Puerto Rican culture and Latin music. The brooch in her hair and on her dress strap was a traditional Puerto Rican flower, representing resilience and pride.

During the show there was a real, official wedding. It all started when the couple invited Bad Bunny to their wedding as a joke, and then he said that they could go to the Super Bowl where he would be performing. It was a very sentimental moment shared with over 128 million people. 

During the fourth quarter of the game and with about 12 minutes and 34 seconds left, a man named Alex Gonzalez streaked. Many said he should have had a Patriot jersey on because of how fast he ran away from security before they piled on top of him. Gonzalez was shirtless, wearing black pants that said “Trade with Athena” to promote his trading business. 

He ended up bypassing security wearing a 20 dollar fake beard and a hat, but he had claimed to have spent 50,000 dollars on tickets that day. This is not the first time this has happened with Gonzalez. In the 2024 Super Bowl LVII, he streaked, costing him about 40,000 dollars in fines. 

The Seahawks won the Super Bowl with the score of 29 to 13, got the Lombardi trophy, and each player on the team received 178,000 dollars.

When it comes down to it, the Super Bowl was very eventful and entertaining. There were many messages about empowerment and hopefully improving the expectations of who is and who “is not” allowed in America. Bad Bunny is trying to show that everyone adds something to this planet, communities matter and should come together and fight for what is right.