The controversial culture war topic of the week has been tied to Bad Bunny’s NFL Super Bowl halftime performance.
The loudest voices in the room either thought Bad Bunny delivered the greatest performance by a foreign artist since The Beatles took over Shea Stadium in 1965, or they thought it was horrendous, and suddenly Kid Rock is Johnny Cash. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle, but from a branding and programming perspective, there is plenty we can take from the NFL’s controversial decision.
The NFL’s goal with the halftime show has clearly been to broaden its reach and audience and get people to sample the league, using the halftime show as the “hook.” They know their die-hard fans — what we might call P1s in radio — will be there for the game, stick around, and maybe complain about the halftime show. But where were they going to go? They had no options anyway, so the NFL rolled the dice. This time, they lost.
Now, the NFL is going to highlight this as the second-most-watched halftime show ever, and that’s certainly something to brag about.
However, the fact that a fairly last-minute alternate halftime show featuring Kid Rock resulted in a temporary drop in the NFL’s biggest broadcast and brought in millions of viewers may mean the league pushed things to the point where the genie was let out of the bottle. It’s not clear they will ever be able to put it back in.
The NFL made a bet that no one would dare challenge them. Turning Point USA did. That alone, combined with viewership data suggesting the NFL took a hit, should be enough to serve as a mild wake-up call for the league office.
As radio continues to try to expand and grow its audience beyond its most die-hard fans, it faces a fine line. The challenge is avoiding alienating the core audience while still trying to grow the tent. In News/Talk, we should always be innovating. Trying new voices, testing digital opportunities, taking chances on content that may not be perceived as “traditional” in the News/Talk space, and experimenting with imaging, bumpers, and liners are all logical steps.
However, if you cross the line into consistently alienating your die-hards, they will find other options. And here’s the difference: the NFL never had a competitor to worry about. Generally speaking, it still doesn’t, other than an alternative Super Bowl halftime show. Radio does have competition. That means we face the unenviable task of finding new audiences through traditional, digital, and social media channels, expanding the tent, and doing our best not to drive the core audience away.
It’s absolutely doable, and there are success stories around the country proving it with their stations and brands. But it’s a much finer line to walk than what the NFL had to deal with. Beyond generating quality content from the NFL, Bad Bunny, TPUSA, and Kid Rock controversy of the week, there’s also a broader lesson here for any business and any industry.
Focus on growth, take chances, be innovative, but do your absolute best to protect your core audience in a way that doesn’t open the door to a free-market challenge. Because now, it seems like that’s a headache the NFL will at least have to be aware of for the foreseeable future.
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Pete Mundo is a weekly columnist for Barrett Media, and the Vice President of News/Talk for Cumulus Media, while also hosting “Mundo in the Morning” and programming KCMO Talk Radio in Kansas City. Previously, he was a fill-in host nationally on FOX News Radio and CBS Sports Radio, while anchoring for WFAN, WCBS News Radio 880, and Bloomberg Radio. He’s also the owner of the Big 12-focused digital media outlet Heartland College Sports. To interact, find him on X @PeteMundo.
