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Viral Petition To Have George Strait Replace Bad Bunny As Super Bowl Halftime Performer Has Reached Over 60,000 Signatures
Pretty impressive numbers.
Last month, the NFL turned heads around the world with the announcement that global superstar and Puerto Rican rapper, Bad Bunny, will be headlining the Super Bowl LX halftime show in Santa Clara, California, on February 8. The decision, of course, was met with quite a bit of controversy for a multitude of different reasons, with the main one being the simple fact that the hitmaker has rarely released any music in English — something Bad Bunny himself laughed off during his recent SNL monologue.
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It should go without saying that Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is nothing short of a powerhouse in terms of global popularity. Beyond his staggering 81.4 million monthly listeners on Spotify (Morgan Wallen has 34.1 million for comparison), he captured the title of most-streamed artist on Spotify three times from 2020-2022, became the first artist to capture a #1 on the Billboard 200 with an all-Spanish language album and has even started an acting career, starring in films such as Bullet Train, Caught Stealing, Happy Gilmore 2 and even making appearances at various WWE events. Simply put, he’s seemingly everywhere.
Despite his global popularity, the decision to go with the Puerto Rican superstar was an odd choice to many. With familiar names like Taylor Swift, Adele, Post Malone, Miley Cyrus and Metallica all being rumored and heavily bet on as performers, plenty were not too thrilled with the NFL’s choice.
Country music fans, in particular, were among the most unhappy. So much, in fact, that many have taken to Change.org to get signatures on petitions that pose the idea of having “King of Country,” George Strait, replace Bad Bunny as the halftime performer.
And one petition on Change.org described the purpose of the petition as the following:
“The Super Bowl halftime show should unite our country, honor American culture, and remain family-friendly, not be turned into a political stunt. Bad Bunny represents none of these values; his drag performances and style are the opposite of what families expect on football’s biggest stage. Again, George Strait embodies unity, tradition, and the timeless American music that truly deserves the 2026 Super Bowl spotlight.
Join us in urging the NFL and related decision-makers to honor American music heritage by selecting George Strait for the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show. Sign this petition to make your voice heard and support a halftime performance that celebrates the legacy of American country music.”
When we first covered the petition last Monday, October 13th, the petition was growing in popularity with a few thousand signatures in total. Over the past week, however, it has absolutely exploded in popularity, garnering nearly 59,000 signatures as of October 21st at 5:00 p.m. EST, with more signees pouring in every minute. For reference, in the last hour, the petition has garnered over 800 signatures.
As we said last time, the probability of this petition actually doing anything of substance is incredibly low. With that being said, however, it’s becoming more clear by the day that a strong majority of the public is craving to see country music return to the Super Bowl given that it’s been over two decades since we got our last proper country halftime performance back in 2002 with Shania Twain — before that was Clint Black, Tanya Tucker, Travis Tritt, and The Judds at the Georgia Dome in 1994.
Though the petition itself is unlikely to swap Bad Bunny for George Strait (like there’s any chance of that anyway), at the least, it shows the public that the desire for country music to be featured on America’s biggest stage.
It won’t change the fact that Bad Bunny is your upcoming Super Bowl halftime performer, but it serves as a reminder that there are plenty of us out there ready for the genre to be represented once again.The post Viral Petition To Have George Strait Replace Bad Bunny As Super Bowl Halftime Performer Has Reached Over 60,000 Signatures first appeared on Whiskey Riff.