What your organization can learn from the NFL’s decision to feature Bad Bunny in the Super Bowl
Rewind to 2025. The National Football League is fresh off an unbelievable, yet controversial, Super Bowl halftime performance by the superstar hip hop artist Kendrick Lamar. The country has just been introduced to a diversity-hostile administration, which has practically squashed any zeal toward diversity, equity, or inclusion that corporate America once seemingly held. As the NFL’s leadership team explores talent considerations for next year’s performance in the midst of this cultural backdrop, someone recommends Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican-born megastar whose songs are performed almost entirely in Spanish, and, surprisingly, the league acquiesces. The public blowback is immediate, yet the NFL stands strong on its decision. On the outside, this may have seemed like a difficult decision for the league to make. But according to Javier Farfan, the global brand and consumer marketing consultant for the NFL, the decision was much easier than one would think.
Farfan, a career marketer executive and media professor at Syracuse University’s New School of Communications, has worked with the NFL for the past six years to help the organization broaden its audience and achieve its ambition for global expansion. He has sat in the small rooms where big decisions were made with regard to the league’s cultural engagement with talent and growth audiences. With the Super Bowl happening this week, we thought that he’d be the perfect guest to join us for this week’s episode of the From The Culture podcast to explore how organizations make difficult decisions.
Clarity of Conviction
The NFL has an ambition to become the biggest sports platform in the world, a vision set by league commissioner Roger Goodell. With a conviction to make American football a worldwide game under Goodell’s leadership, the NFL began playing regular season matches in international markets to broaden its reach. It even petitioned the Olympics to successfully institute flag football as an official event to help further its global adoption. But the universality of music as cultural production is unparallelled, making the Super Bowl halftime show a unique front door into the football universe, one that transforms a sporting competition into a pop-culture event.
And it’s the clarity of the organization’s commitment to expansion that makes Bad Bunny an obvious decision for the NFL. His tours sell millions of tickets around the world and his music is streamed billions of times on Spotify—crowning him the most globally-streamed artist for four of the last five years. Even with the local resistance from conservatives and the Trump administration, Bad Bunny’s global reach is undeniable. As Farfan asserts, it was easy for the organization and all its many stakeholders to get on board because they all subscribed to a shared ambition. The league, its teams, its partners, and Bad Bunny himself are all aligned, each bringing their talents and resources to help the collective realize its potential.
The same can be said within our own organizations. Our companies’ convictions not only help orient their direction but also guide their decision-making such that hard decisions aren’t so difficult. When the conviction is clear, decisions are made easy. Take the outdoor brand Patagonia. The company has long been committed to mitigating human evasiveness on the planet. This is the ambition that unites all its stakeholders. Along with its retail business, Patagonia outfitted high-end corporate clients with company apparel. Company vests and fleece jackets with the Patagonia logo etched on the chest became a sort of unofficial uniform for Wall Street bankers and Silicon Valley techies. This was a significant revenue driver for the company. However, when Patagonia realized that some of its corporate clients dealt in ventures that did not prioritize the planet, it decided to end its business dealings with them. Despite the loss of revenue, this was an easy decision for Patagonia because its convictions were clear.
Hard decisions are only truly hard when conviction is ill-defined. In the case of the NFL, if the ambition is to be a global sport, then you choose the options that get you closer to that ambition—even if it means facing some headwinds. Easy. If you’re Patagonia and your conviction is to protect the planet, then you take the path that preserves the Earth, although you may lose some revenue in the short run. Again, easy. Difficulty lies where your conviction is questioned and your commitment to it is uncertain. For organizations that know what they’re after and know who they are, the only real loss is loss of self when they deviate from it.
Check out our full interview with Javier Farfan that breaks down the dynamics of the NFL’s decision to partner with Bad Bunny for the Super Bowl halftime show and what takeaways leaders can glean about their own organizations.