Donald Trump, it is fair to assume, will be switching channels during this year’s Super Bowl halftime show.

The U.S. president has already said that he won’t be attending Super Bowl LX in person, suggesting that the venue, Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, was “just too far away.” But the choice of celebrity entertainment planned for the main break – Puerto Rican reggaeton star Bad Bunny and recently announced pregame addition Green Day – didn’t appeal. “I’m anti-them. I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible,” Trump told the New York Post.

National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell likely didn’t have the sensibilities of the U.S. president in mind when the choice of Bad Bunny was made.

One of the top artists in the world, Bad Bunny performs primarily in Spanish and has been critical of immigration enforcement, which factored into the backlash in some conservative circles to the choice. Bad Bunny’s anti-ICE comments at this year’s Grammy Awards will have only stoked the ire of some conservatives.

But for the NFL hierarchy, this was likely a business decision, not a political one. The league has its eyes on expansion into Latin America; Bad Bunny, they hope, will be a ratings-winning means to an end. It has made such bets in the past. In 2020, Shakira and Jennifer Lopez were chosen to perform, with Bad Bunny making an appearance. The choice then, too, was seen as controversial.

As a teacher and scholar of critical sports studies, I study the global growth of U.S.-based sports leagues overseas.

Some, like the National Basketball Association, are at an advantage. The sport is played around the globe and has large support bases in Asia – notably in the Philippines and China – as well as in Europe, Australia and Canada.

The NFL, by contrast, is largely entering markets that have comparatively little knowledge and experience with football and its........

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