Tube Trends: Bad Bunny And The NFL’s Gen Z Pitch

Feb 4

Bad Bunny is one of the biggest music acts in the world, yet his selection as the Super Bowl halftime performer still sparked some surprise.

Side-stepping the political aspect of the conversation, the earnest questions seemed to simply come from the fact that Bad Bunny’s younger audience didn’t have overwhelming overlap with the NFL’s.

But for a league trying to get younger, that’s exactly the point.

Data from Tubular Labs reveals that 70.6% of Bad Bunny’s YouTube audience are Gen Z consumers (aged 13-to-24) — a massive number for any artist, but especially at the size and scale Bad Bunny has.

By comparison, Tubular found that just 27.6% of the NFL’s YouTube audience is Gen Z. That figure is even lower when looking at data shared by S&P Global following the 2023-24 season, which said that just 5% of the NFL’s viewers were in the 18-to-24 range, while 65% were 45 or older.

Such a drastic split explains why classic rock was such a halftime show staple until very recently. And it’s a key part of why Bad Bunny makes a lot more sense as a performer when it comes to the NFL expanding its audience for both the Super Bowl and points beyond.

Even a fraction of the Gen Z viewers that watch the Big Game just for Bad Bunny being converted into regular NFL watchers is a step in the right direction.

For Bad Bunny (real name: Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) there are benefits here as well as he continues to expand into widespread pop culture stardom.

Along with semi-frequent appearances during WWE events, he’s also appeared in films like F9, Bullet Train, Happy Gilmore 2 and Caught Stealing. And in 2025, he appeared as both a musical guest and host of Saturday Night Live during separate episodes.

His rising recognition among more casual viewers help set the stage for him to play headliner as part of the NFL’s bigger Gen Z pitch now — which will play out across social media before and during this year’s game.

Last week, the NFL announced it will bring over 160 creators to the game itself and that was before announcements around Bleacher Report and TikTok’s radio row setup that’s entirely aimed at social creation and (younger) fan engagement.

It also doesn’t factor in the larger impact of Bad Bunny on social content around the game.

In the last 90 days alone, the star has generated 6.8 billion views on TikTok, with 86% of that coming via user-generated content. To the point shared last week around the “creator bowl” and creators getting more NFL-related views this season than the league itself, Bad Bunny is very much a similar play.

By having him perform, you’re also inviting the tens of thousands of creators that will happily post about Bad Bunny, the Super Bowl and the NFL as a whole. And just because the NFL is the largest property on U.S. television, it doesn’t mean it can’t keep growing.

As audiences keep fragmenting and traditional TV continues to remake itself in a streaming-first world, the sports league(s) that best figure out connecting with young viewers will be the one(s) that win most. Bad Bunny isn’t the only way for the NFL to do that, but it’s a pretty good start.