Why Bad Bunny wasn’t paid a penny to headline Super Bowl halftime show

The Puerto Rican rapper will be taking the stage February 8

Bad Bunny headlined the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show last night for one of the biggest performances of his career – but he wasn’t paid a penny for it.

The Puerto Rican megastar, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, became the first male solo Latin artist to perform the halftime show, as well as the first to perform their set entirely in Spanish, which prompted backlash from the MAGA crowd, who put on an alternative show.

While many may assume the “Tití Me Preguntó” singer may be receiving a large paycheck for his performance, halftime show performers do not receive any compensation.

Outside of the union-mandated minimum of a few hundred dollars that will be absorbed into overall production costs, the NFL does not pay halftime headliners, as the musicians largely rely on the exposure they receive from the large appearance, according to Forbes.

Last year, following Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance, seen by an average of 133.5 million viewers during Super Bowl 2025, his song “Not Like Us” saw a 430 percent increase in streams.

This year’s Super Bowl halftime performer, Bad Bunny, will be part of the longstanding tradition in which the headliner is compensated in exposure and not money (Getty Images)

Meanwhile, Rihanna also saw a massive surge in music sales and streams, as well as sales for her cosmetics brand Fenty Beauty, following her 2023 Super Bowl halftime performance.

Immediately after her exceptional concert, the “Umbrella” pop star saw her Spotify streams increase by 640 percent. It’s estimated that within just 12 hours of her performance, she had racked up $88.3 million in media impact value, according to brand performance insight tool Launchmetrics.

Others also benefited as Lady Gaga saw her album and song sales increase by 1000 percent as a result of her 2017 performance, and Jennifer Lopez additionally gained 2.3 million new Instagram followers after her 2020 Super Bowl halftime appearance with Shakira.

The production cost of the halftime show comes with a high price tag, with the NFL and Apple Music oftentimes putting down around $10 million to cover the cost of the staffers involved in the production, as well as the elaborate sets and audio equipment.

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In 2021, The Weeknd reportedly spent $7 million of his own money to put on the show, as did Dr. Dre the year before that.