The Athletic has live coverage of the Super Bowl LX halftime show featuring Bad Bunny.
While the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks vie for the Lombardi Trophy, Bad Bunny runs through hits and makes a statement. Sunday’s Super Bowl becomes the “Benito Bowl” at the intermission. Pats and Hawks are briefly relieved by Concho, the headliner’s amphibious mascot. “Fotos” will certainly be taken.
Bad Bunny comes in off last weekend’s Grammys coronation. He won album of the year, uplifted Puerto Rico with his acceptance speech, and said “ICE out” in response to the federal government’s fatal immigration raids. It’s always billed as “the biggest concert of the year,” and the 2026 halftime show feels truly massive. Above all else, Bad Bunny has a massive reach — he’s been Spotify’s most-streamed artist for four of the last six years.
Here’s what to know for Sunday, including recent halftime set lengths and start times.
How to watch Bad Bunny at Super Bowl LX
- Venue: Levi’s Stadium — Santa Clara, Calif.
- Estimated Halftime Start: 8-8:30 p.m. ET, Sunday
- TV: NBC, Telemundo, Universo
- Streaming: Peacock
- Watching in person? Get tickets on StubHub.
NBC is free over the air.
Bad Bunny in brief
Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio grew up in Puerto Rico’s Vega Baja municipality. His music career took off in 2016, and Bad Bunny was a commercial behemoth by 2020. “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” (“I Should Have Taken More Photos”) debuted atop the Billboard 200 in January 2025. That album was supported with a San Juan residency — to celebrate the island, but also out of fear that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would target his shows.
Bad Bunny’s music has been lauded for its danceable rhythms and creative ambition. The singer shakes up reggaeton flows over trap beats, and his vocals can cut from beachside to arena in rapid time. “Fotos” dips further into salsa and bomba:
El 8 de febrero, el mundo bailará.#AppleMusicHalftime #SBLX pic.twitter.com/JD4jDVQCvw
— Apple Music (@AppleMusic) January 16, 2026
Halftime show start time and run time
There is no fixed start for the Super Bowl halftime show. So, Bad Bunny lies in wait with the Patriots-Seahawks game flow. More rush attempts and completed passes lead to a faster clock, of course, and scoring plays bring on extra commercial time.
Using The Athletic’s live Super Bowl blogs, we’re able to see when sets began in years past. The times below are approximations and listed in ET:
| Artist | Start Time |
|---|---|
|
Kendrick Lamar (2025) |
8:26 p.m. |
|
Usher (2024) |
8:24 p.m. |
|
Rihanna (2023) |
8:28 p.m. |
|
Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg (2022) |
8:13 p.m. |
There’s less range in run times. The recent shows have come in around 13 to 15 minutes. Bad Bunny will decide how many songs fit in that window. Setlist.fm put Kendrick Lamar at 11 tracks, Usher at 13, Rihanna at 10 and 2022’s rap medley at 11.
More Bad Bunny halftime show coverage
The Athletic’s anonymous NFL player poll: “Reaction from players in this poll was largely split, though the majority who didn’t like the selection cited a lack of familiarity with Bad Bunny’s music or said they simply preferred a different performer.”
The Athletic‘s props and predictions: “While Bad Bunny has done plenty of collaborations with stars who are hugely popular in the United States (like Cardi B, Travis Scott and Drake), I don’t think we’ll see them on stage. If he has a guest performer, I think he’ll follow the theme of his latest album, which only featured Puerto Rican artists. This will really drive home the statement that he doesn’t need to pivot away from Puerto Rico to hold onto his mainstream popularity and appeal to a wider American audience. I could see a feature from RaiNao or Dei V.” — Zoe Light
Denny Alfonso tracks the sports references in his lyrics: “‘Acho PR’ — short for ‘muchacho,’ or ‘guy’ — references four Caribbean baseball legends in a single verse while mixing in some soccer: ‘El mejor Roberto Clemente, Albert Pujols. Maradona y Messi en el fútbol. Pero soy la nueva estrella, los contrato’ a lo Sugar y Lindor’ In English: ‘The best, Roberto Clemente, Albert Pujols. Maradona and Messi in soccer. But I’m the new star, contracts like Sugar and Lindor.’”
Jayna Bardahl spotlights the camera crew: “While the performers practice months in advance, most of the camera crew, made up primarily of freelancers, is called in the week of the Super Bowl. They have three days of on-field rehearsal before they broadcast the halftime to millions. They practice for every mistake, every technical difficulty, and, perhaps most complicated, how to get on and off the field. But what does Rob, a 17-show veteran cameraman, want people to know about his job?
‘It’s a great gig, I’m not gonna say, “Oh, it’s so hard,’” he said. ‘No, it’s pretty much the greatest gig in the world.’”
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