The Josh Innes Show - Bad Bunny Halftime? Woof

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

Is the NFL just running out of people at this point? I'm aware Bad Bunny is a big deal internationally...But, I don't get it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Halloween is on Disney Plus. Hello. So you can feel a little fear. What's this? Well. Or a little more fear. I see dead people. Or a lot of fear.

Mom? Or you can get completely terrified. Who's that? Choose wisely. With Halloween on Disney Plus. us. Well, last night, they made the announcement about the halftime show. It was during it was during halftime of Sunday night football that they announced the Super Bowl halftime show, and it's not Taylor. The details about why it's not Taylor are fascinating, the reported

details about why Taylor isn't playing the halftime show. The most important factor would be that Taylor doesn't need it. Why would Taylor need to play the Super Bowl? She's the biggest star on the planet. She's got idiot people who are going to buy 17 different alternate versions of this new album. These people are going to wait in line at Target to buy every one of her five or six alternate album covers and everything else. This chick is a billionaire. She doesn't need the NFL. The NFL needs her. And the reports were that Taylor requested that she get to the own the rights to the video of it or the performance and do her own thing. And they're like, no, you can't do that.

And she's like, well, then look, you need me more than I need you, which is a fact, by the way. Let me play a couple commercials and we'll continue. TD Bank knows that running a small business is a journey, from startup to growing and managing your business. That's why they have a dedicated small business advice hub on their website to provide tips and insights on business banking to entrepreneurs. No matter the stage of business you're in, visit td.com slash small business advice to find out more or to match with a TD small business banking account manager. 100%. Like the NFL doesn't need anybody for the halftime show because 100 plus million people are going to watch the halftime show either way and 100 plus million people are going

to watch the Super Bowl. That's why I find it funny when people talk about like, oh boy, the NFL wants a blank matchup for the Super Bowl. It doesn't really matter. They're still going to be basically the same number of people are going to watch it every year, and the growth is going to be the same every year. And if it's a close game, you'll see a pop and viewership late in the game if it's close.

If it's a blowout, it won't. Like, it's not difficult. But Taylor is the biggest star on the planet. She does not need the NFL. She does not need the NFL to help her sell music. She doesn't need the NFL to help build her brand. So she can do whatever she wants. If she doesn't want to do it, if she's having to do it for free, then she didn't have to do it.

Taylor should hold on. She should keep that ace in the hole. That should be in her back pocket the whole time. Taylor should sit back and wait until she needs it, which is going to probably be forever, because seemingly there's never going to be a time that Taylor isn't going to be a huge star. So she doesn't need the NFL. But the person that is playing the halftime show is Bad Bunny. And musically, I couldn't tell you a fucking thing about bad.

Bad Bunny. I know more about Bad Bunny the wrestler when he was on WWE than I can tell you about Bad Bunny the musician. And like that's back-to-back Super Bowl halftime shows. And I don't know if they're dealing with, you know, just people don't want to do it, which is very possible. But this is back-to-back niche halftime shows. This one being far more niche than Kendrick Lamar. That's not to say that Bad Bunny isn't a gigantic star globally, because he is. He's a huge global star. But Bad Bunny is also not someone who's got a plethora of pop hits that are on American radio. Same with Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick wasn't a huge deal. Then he does the Super Bowl. And then you can't avoid him. He's everywhere. There's seven songs of his playing on Top 40

radio every day. Bad Bunny is not one of those people. Bad Bunny is not someone who's loaded with radio hits. So, like, I think this fucking sucks. Like, this is the first time I can honestly honestly tell you that I've watched a Super Bowl halftime show when this eventually happens. This will be the first time that I do not know a fucking song from the artist. And I was talking with someone about this and they were like, well, you know, the NFL is trying to kind of build that global thing. Good for the NFL.

But at the end of the day, your audience is still in America, greatest country in the world. And like, stop trying to do shit for other countries. Like I saw that Roger Goodell was trying to get one. an international game a week in the NFL. Why? Like, no offense to Ireland. I don't give a fuck if Ireland ever watches the NFL in person. I don't give a fuck if Brazil does it.

I don't give a fuck if England does it. I don't give a fuck if Mexico does it. At the end of the day, the NFL is still an American sport. So the idea that the NFL is obsessed with globalizing the game and making it an international game, like, I get why you want to do it. But remember your people who, you know, butter the fucking. bread and pay the fucking bills. And that is people in America. So, like, you can kiss the ass of all these other countries and try to expand. And who knows, before you know, there might be a team in

Ireland, and a team in England, and a team in Brazil, and a team in Mexico. Maybe that'll be the case. But that's not what I'm here for. I'm not here for your international games. I am an American that watches an American sport. At the end of the day, there's no threat of the EPL, right? The English Premier League, having, you know, teams in America. or playing meaningful games. I'm not saying they haven't, but it's not like they're not obsessed with finding EPL league games to be played in America.

Yet for whatever reason, America is so interested in expanding the brand globally. And I get it. It's money. Everything is about money. I'm not stupid. I'm not naive. But I am a person who consumes the product in America. And in America, like, focus on me.

If I'm a fan of a team and I'm losing a home game, like if I'm the Steelers and I lose a home game, game so they can play a game in fucking Ireland. Like, hey, would it be a cool road trip? Sure, I guess that'd be a cool thing. If you want to, you know, get a passport and travel to Ireland, neat. But you're still losing a home game. And I hate that shit.

But Bad Bunny, look, it might be the most exciting half-time show ever. But as far as just the talent being booked for it, this is the worst half-time show ever. Before it's even happened, it is the worst halftime show ever. If you look at some of the recent ones, like last year, like Kendrick Lamar is a guy who became a huge radio star, but Kendrick Lamar was niche, right? Before that, though, you start looking at some of these halftime shows and like the weekend. You look at the weekend, you're like, all right, I know who the fucking weekend is. The guy had like every song that was on the radio for a stretch. Or Rihanna, you're like, okay, Rihanna.

Like, everybody fucking knows who Rihanna is. Everybody knows who Usher is. Like, these are people that had giant, like, whether, you know, the old white. white dudes that listen to rock radio know who they are, isn't really relevant. They are big time relevant stars and people know who they are. Like people know the name Bad Bunny because it's an interesting name. Like, oh, who's Bad Bunny? Nobody, like, what the fuck are we doing?

And I'm not telling you that the guy doesn't have a global audience. He does. And obviously the NFL cares about that. Maybe they're having a hard time getting certain artists of, like, American artist to play. Maybe that's part of it. Maybe like, hey, Taylor didn't want to do it. Other acts may not want to do it if they don't think it's best. beneficial to them. It's a lot of effort that has to go into it. Maybe they don't want to do it.

That's very possible. But like, this is the worst. And I'm seeing a bunch of people like, what about Metallica or a rock band? I've told you this and I will tell it to you again and again. The NFL has no interest in putting rock bands in the Super Bowl. The last thing they want to deal with is social media ripping them for having old white dudes playing the halftime show. Those days are over. Your days of getting old white dudes play in the halftime show, the days of Tom Petty, the days of Paul McCartney, the days of Bruce Springsteen, those are over. You will not get old white dudes to play. So if you do the math here, you're not going to get old white dudes. Eliminate them.

And then you're going to find the younger artists, some of which don't want to play or some of whom don't want to play. Because why would they? They don't need to, like a Taylor Swift. you're going to be limited on who you're going to be able to get because they're not getting paid to do it and it's a lot of work to do it and you take a lot of scrutiny when you do it so you're kind of limited

I mean look around just look at this like Bad Bunny is a terrible halftime show and what happens is here's the problem and this is what the people on the internets do the internet folks the internet folks judge you and call you racist or whatever if you're like I don't give a shit about bad bunny who is bad bunny

then what they do is they'll post like the pictures of all the people who are saying this like there's that graphic of all the white dudes in the sunglasses and they're like here you know here's the people that aren't excited about bad bunny brother ain't nobody fucking excited about no bad bunny that good for him he was on rasslin and helped bring some viewers into rasslin and he was part of an angle in wwe and he was actually good at it like it was an entertaining angle that he was part of. But nobody's sitting here like, boy, I need bad bunny for my halftime show. But on the other hand, who the fuck else is going to do it?

Like, you're kind of running out of artist. Like, as far as popular music goes, like, every song is done by about four people. I don't know if you can put Sabrina Carpenter on there because she's a whore. Like, you put on the halftime show and it's like, what does Sabrina Carpenter doing? Oh, she's mimicking, blowing some guy on the stage, and she's bending over showing her coos to everybody. And by the way, outside of like the top 40 audience, like who gives a shit about Sabrina Carpenter or Tate McCrae? They have huge followings in the top 40 world.

That's great. Here's what you got to. If you're like a 35, 40, 40, 45 year old guy that likes rock music, what you have to accept, or anybody older than that, what you have to accept is that the Super Bowl halftime show from here on out will never be for you. You will never get a rock halftime show. You've already used up all the dudes who are still alive that are rock legend. Now, you might say, well, what about like ACDC? You can wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one gets filled up. ACDC will not, under any circumstance, be playing the halftime show.

Well, what about Metallica? Metallica will not be playing the halftime show. Here's the way this operates. The NFL can handle old white people criticizing them on Facebook. They can deal with that. Like old white people yelling at clouds, Facebook. They can do that. What they don't want to deal with is like Twitter.

because Twitter is where you're going to get a younger crowd and Twitter is where you're going to get the people that are going to be quick to call you racist or whatever. And the NFL just doesn't want to deal with the drama of that. The NFL would rather just put somebody like Bad Bunny on and let the old people yell at clouds on Facebook than they would rather deal with, you know, like the young people being pissed off about it being old people on Twitter.

They don't want to deal with that. And they don't want to be considered old. They don't want to be considered stale. That's why you'll never see a Metallica. Metallica is old. ACDC is old. Guns and Rose is old. I'm just trying to think of legendary rock acts that are still around.

The Rolling Stones are old. So the Aerosmith, who's already played the Super Bowl halftime show, but they are old. You are not going to see older acts like that. And you'll say, well, what about the feedback? They don't care if old people on Facebook who fall for onion stories are yelling. What they care about is what young people on Twitter, and the younger social media platforms are doing. That's who they care about.

So you get Bad Bunny, which I think is, like, I don't get it. I don't. This is not old man yells at Cloud. This is not white guy saying, give me more rock music. None of that. This is, like, I understand it when it's a big pop star. Like, I get Rihanna, and I get Kendrick Lamar to a degree. I get it, Usher.

Like, I understand what, or was it Justin Timberlake did it when we went to the Super Bowl in Minneapolis. They're just right. I'm going to guess a lot of people just say no. Like they're probably like, I don't want to deal with this. This is a fucking headache and I'm not getting paid for it. Who gives a fuck? Like what positive can come out of it?

But whatever, more to come.