If you thought the NFL couldn’t get any more political, the National Football League seems to be making more political statements instead of focusing on football. After announcing America-hating rapper Bad Bunny as this year’s Super Bowl halftime performer, the league has doubled down by adding far-left rock band Green Day to open the big game.
Yes, the same Green Day whose frontman, Billie Joe Armstrong, has spent years insulting conservatives, calling Republicans “fascists,” and changing song lyrics to attack the political right and even Israel. This isn’t some new behavior. In 2016, during the American Music Awards, Green Day chanted “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA!” live on stage. Armstrong has compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, called for his impeachment, and last year went so far as to yell “f*** America,” vowing to renounce his U.S. citizenship after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. All the usual lefty bromides.
Now the NFL is proudly celebrating its “hometown band” during the Super Bowl’s ceremony to mark 60 years of MVPs. “Celebrating 60 years of Super Bowl history with Green Day as a hometown band, while honoring the NFL legends who’ve helped define this sport, is an incredibly powerful way to kick off Super Bowl LX,” said Tim Tubito, the league’s senior director of event and game presentation, in a statement cited by the Associated Press. The NFL says it will “create a collective celebration” with NBC Sports for fans around the world. But what kind of celebration is it when the act on stage openly despises millions of those same fans?
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It’s not just Green Day. The halftime headliner, Bad Bunny, has built a reputation for racially charged remarks about White Americans and for his vocal opposition to Trump. So what message does the league think it’s sending here? There was a time when the Super Bowl brought the country together. But lately, every year feels like a lecture.
In addition to Bad Bunny and Green Day, Charlie Puth will sing the national anthem. Brandi Carlile will perform “America the Beautiful,” and Coco Jones is set to deliver the so-called “Black national anthem,” “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” This last addition has stirred controversy since the NFL began including it in 2020. Many conservatives see it as dividing the audience by race, rather than uniting fans under “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Critics say this isn’t new. The same league that created the Rooney Rule in 2003 which required teams to interview minority candidates for all top jobs, has steadily expanded it. Supporters call it “inclusion.” Opponents, including more than half of Republican fans in recent polls, call it “reverse discrimination.” Then came 2018, when the NFL began allowing openly gay male cheerleaders. That policy now affects about a third of all teams, and detractors say it’s another example of the league pushing gender politics where they don’t belong.
At some point, fans have to ask: what happened to pro football? The NFL built its legacy on toughness, discipline, and patriotism, but now it spends more time preaching social messages than celebrating the sport itself. How long before even more Americans decide they’ve had enough?
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