Super Bowl LX, Bad Bunny, and the Changing of the Guard.
What the NFL’s biggest stage reveals about demographic power and cultural leadership
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Super Bowl LX, Bad Bunny, and the Changing of the Guard
When the National Football League selected Bad Bunny for Sunday’s Super Bowl, it marked a demographic milestone. The most visible entertainment platform in American sports elevated the artist whose audience reflects the fastest-growing cohort in the United States.
The Super Bowl Halftime Show as a Market Signal
The Super Bowl is the single most valuable stage in American media. Brands invest millions of dollars for seconds of attention. Networks build entire programming calendars around it. The halftime show functions as the American cultural headline seen around the world.
When the NFL chooses an artist for that stage, it aligns its brand with the audience it expects will matter most in the decades ahead. Their goal is to drive audience growth, shift media consumption patterns, and build long-term brand equity.
But First, a Story
Years ago, I sat in a Miami boardroom with executives and board members who led their category. Their brand reflected their own generation and their experience. But I was there because the dominance they had enjoyed was no longer paying the bills.
We presented demographic research that mapped out the future of their market. We showed them that their new growth segments were younger and more diverse than before.
One executive leaned back, scratched himself, and smirked. “That’s interesting. But our customer has always looked like this…”
He opened his arms, gesturing around the table, to indicate that their future would resemble their past. He was wrong.
Markets move quietly at first. Data shifts before headlines do. Until the day the shift becomes visible to everyone.
U.S. Hispanic Demographics: The Age Curve That Matters
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Hispanic population in the United States is one in five Americans, or 65+ million people. It represents the USA’s largest minority group and the fastest-growing major demographic cohort.
But it’s the age of this population that’s so significant. The median age of U.S. Hispanics is about 31 years, while the median age of the total U.S. population is about 39 years. And that eight-year difference represents millions of consumers entering their prime earning years, their family-forming years, and their long-term brand-loyalty years. Clearly, the NFL knows this.
Youth as Economic Runway
Younger populations create longer lifetime value. They build households, purchase homes, subscribe to services, attend events, and establish brand preferences that can persist for decades. When a cohort this large skews younger, it generates an economic runway that organizations ignore at their peril.
Latino Buying Power and GDP Growth
Research from UCLA’s Latino GDP Project estimates U.S. Latino GDP at more than 3.6 trillion dollars a year. Believe it or not, if U.S. Latinos were considered a standalone economy, they would rank among the largest in the world.
The Changing of the Guard in American Culture
I already know some of you will question my judgment, my motives, and the league’s decision. Some readers will fire off angry emails, and my social feeds will fill with declarations that the game has changed, the country has changed, and that things are not what they used to be. The tone will be urgent and wounded, as if something deeply personal has been stripped away.
But the truth is, moments like this expose how people tie identity to dominance. And when influence begins to shift, their reaction is often wrapped in nostalgia and sharpened by fear. Cultural sea changes can feel like the ground is shifting beneath their feet. Cultural leadership has long been associated with a particular image of who stands at the center of the stage, and when that image evolves, the response becomes loud and defensive.
What Leaders Should Learn from the NFL
The NFL knows where youth is concentrated, where economic growth is accelerating, and where cultural influence is expanding. And by inviting Bad Bunny to the Super Bowl, the league aligned its brand with the audience that will define its next generation of fans.
Super Bowl LX’s halftime show was more than entertainment. It was a visible marker of a demographic transition already underway. And before you think that the NFL doesn’t understand this, know that while they have over 32 million Instagram followers, Bad Bunny has more than 50 million, and his halftime show broke 2025’s viewer count of 133.5 million with a world-record 142.3 million viewers.
That’s what change sounds like. The data has been hinting at it for years. The NFL just yelled it from the mountain top.