When Bad Bunny concluded his monthslong residency in Puerto Rico last fall, the retired N.F.L. offensive lineman Willie Colon was watching a livestream of the concert from home in Paramus, N.J., and dancing with his 4-year-old daughter.
The jubilee reminded Colon of his childhood in the South Bronx, where he grew up immersed in Puerto Rican culture. His father, who was from the Caribbean island, would take him and his brothers to parties at the Bronx’s Orchard Beach hosted by La Mega 97.9, a Latin radio station.
“We’d be salsa dancing, and we’d be shaking our little tails off, and my dad would just sit there and look at us with pride,” Colon said. “He was like, ‘This is your people. This your music. Embrace it.’”
The small fraternity of N.F.L. players with Puerto Rican heritage — according to the league, there are at least nine — has displayed its pride for the island at practices and on game days, and the athletes are euphoric that their culture will soon be shared with an enormous audience.
More than 100 million viewers in the United States are expected to watch Bad Bunny this Sunday, when he will headline the Super Bowl halftime show at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. He infuses his performances with Puerto Rican flair, singing primarily in Spanish about the island’s flag, its beaches and its geopolitics.
“The stage is bigger than the N.F.L. itself,” said Colon, who played nine seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New York Jets. “The stage is indicative to where we’re at right now.”
Colon said the first Latino player he noticed in the N.F.L. was Marco Rivera, an offensive lineman who is also of Puerto Rican descent. He was frequently visible on television as a blocker for the Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and his last name was an indicator to Colon of their common roots.
“I was like, ‘Oh, OK, we got one,’” said Colon, 42, who shares a name with the Puerto Rican salsa musician and activist also from the South Bronx. “That was my beacon of light.”
About 55 of the N.F.L.’s more than 2,000 players are Latino, according to a league spokeswoman. Isiah Pacheco, a running back for the Kansas City Chiefs, draped the Puerto Rican flag over his shoulders after winning the Super Bowl in 2024. This year’s championship contest, between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots, includes a Puerto Rican player, the rookie offensive lineman Federico Maranges, who plays on the Seahawks’ practice squad.
The former wide receiver Victor Cruz increased the visibility of Latin players in the 2010s by frequently salsa dancing in the end zone after he scored a touchdown (and he scored 25 of them). His mother is Puerto Rican, and the celebration was a nod to his grandmother, who taught him how to dance when he was a child. During his six seasons with the New York Giants, Cruz conducted interviews in Spanish with Spanish-language media outlets.
“I think that went a long way into understanding and breaking that barrier,” Cruz, 39, said. “I think it helped guys to understand that like, ‘Oh, we have someone who not just says he’s Spanish or Hispanic, and he’s in our locker room, but he speaks it, he’s genuine.’”
Bad Bunny performed during the Super Bowl halftime show in 2020 as a surprise guest with the headliners Jennifer Lopez and Shakira, and Gloria Estefan was featured twice in the 1990s. But this is the first time that the N.F.L. has selected a primarily Spanish-language artist to be the headliner, which may be a strategic move as the league expands into more international markets. It has held several regular-season games in Mexico City, and in November it played its first regular-season game in Madrid.
Several prominent Republicans were upset by the selection of Bad Bunny, who has been critical of President Trump’s divisive language and immigration policies and who largely does not perform in English. Bad Bunny told i-D magazine in September that he did not incorporate the mainland United States into his latest tour because he feared that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement would target his fans. On Sunday, when he won three Grammy Awards, including album of the year (the first for a Spanish-language LP), he criticized ICE from the ceremony’s stage.
The conservative group Turning Point USA has announced an alternative musical event as counterprogramming, which will include the rock musician Kid Rock, a prominent Trump supporter, and Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, said last year that ICE would “be all over” the Super Bowl. While government and league officials have since said that they do not expect an immigration crackdown to occur in the San Francisco area on Sunday, many residents remain on edge.
Bad Bunny joked about the controversy in October, during his monologue as the season-opening host of “Saturday Night Live.” After speaking in Spanish, he told the audience (in English) that it had four months to learn the language.
Cruz called the backlash close-minded.
“Why is it that we can’t get to know something that may not be comfortable for us or something that we don’t know about?” Cruz said. “Why can’t we see the beauty in it and adjust to it and get to learn it and get to know something that may be foreign to you?”
Cruz, who retired in 2018, remains connected to the N.F.L. through its Latino marketing campaign, Por La Cultura. A younger crop of Puerto Rican players is starting to emerge.
Cesar Ruiz, an offensive lineman for the New Orleans Saints, is Puerto Rican and Dominican, and alternates stickers of the countries’ flags on his helmet. He grew up in New Jersey and recently hired a Spanish tutor. He hopes to become fluent — and a more effective ambassador to potential Spanish-speaking players and fans.
“Football is not just limited to Americans,” Ruiz said, “and you’re not just limited to a certain sport because of where you’re from.”
Emmanuel Morgan reports on sports, pop culture and entertainment.
The post Bad Bunny Means a Breakthrough for Puerto Rican Athletes, Too appeared first on New York Times.
