Turning Point USA took a big risk in scheduling counterprograming as a protest to the NFL making Spanish language, Puerto Rican, ICE-critical artist Bad Bunny the Super Bowl halftime show headliner.
But the organization is deeming its “All American Halftime Show” — which featured country artists Kid Rock, Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice, and Gabby Barrett — a major win, promising to do another alternative halftime show next year.
And with the widespread praise for the show on the right, it’s setting the tone for what comes next in conservative activism — even as it’s unclear whether it was successful.
Here are my four top takeaways.
Big streaming numbers with unclear impact
A major stated goal of the TPUSA show was to draw enough eyeballs away from the Super Bowl to make NFL executives nervous about ad dollars if they choose liberal music artists.
“There are media industry executives, advertising executives all across the country that took note last night, and some of them are pretty nervous this morning,” TPUSA spokesman Andrew Kolvet told Steve Bannon on his WarRoom podcast Monday.
TPUSA is declaring it to be one of the most-watched live streams in YouTube history, with more than 6.15 million concurrent viewers at one point. And that doesn’t account for streams on other platforms, or those who watched after the fact.
Still, it’s going to be hard to track exactly what that means for how many people tuned away from the Super Bowl.
My colleague Dominick Mastrangelo, who covers media and sports, provides this context:
“Television ratings for each year's Super Bowl and the NFL respectively have been climbing for years, with more than 130 million viewers tuning in to watch the Philadelphia Eagles take on the Kansas City Chiefs and rapper Kendrick Lamar's concert at halftime. Nielsen Media Research, the company that tracks viewership on linear cable and broadcast, is expected to report early ratings figures on Tuesday afternoon. Television business experts are expecting Sunday's game, given Bad Bunny's global popularity, to surpass last year's record-breaking total achieved on Fox.”
But even if it didn’t hurt the Super Bowl’s bottom line, the streaming numbers are enough to mean no one is laughing off the well-produced TPUSA show as a flop — and Kolvet said that TPUSA is already starting to plan a bigger, better show next year.
Conservatives are re-embracing outsider status in popular culture and institutions
For years, a major tactic on the right was to build alternative institutions to those deemed to be run by liberals. Think legacy news institutions are biased? Build a conservative outlet (there are many, many conservative outlets). Feeling censored on social media? Build a Truth Social, Parler, or Getter. Even the cell phone industry has a conservative alternative: Patriot Mobile.
With Trump’s return to power, though, there seemed to be a vibe shift strong enough that conservatives were starting to focus more on reclaiming major institutions rather than building alternatives to them. Elon Musk bought Twitter and renamed it X, drastically changing the tone of the site. News organizations coughed up millions to settle lawsuits with Trump, and Bari Weiss became a top executive at CBS News.
The TPUSA alternative halftime show, though, showed that there is still plenty of muscle memory for creating conservative alternatives — and showcased how conservatives still feel cultural alienation.
Lee Brice during the show debuted a new single, “Country Nowadays,” which embodied that sentiment.
“It ain't easy being country in this country nowadays,” Brice sang. “I just want to cut my grass, watch my game, say my prayers — not get a picture of a flag up in flames while people cheer.”
The competing show might have depressed hot takes bashing Bad Bunny
I’ll be honest: I watched Bad Bunny’s show before TPUSA’s — and then immediately eagerly took to social media in search of hot takes. But they were hard to find, as many of the take-makers were watching the TPUSA show.
It wasn’t clear some of those firing off early hot takes on the right even watched the show — or at least paid much attention. “Not a single white person or English translation at the Super Bowl,” posted Laura Loomer. (Lady Gaga made a surprise appearance and sang in English.)
Daily Wire commentator Michael Knowles joked about the dynamic on Fox News: "I’m very upset with TPUSA, because every year I look forward to watching the Super Bowl, being subjected to some horrible leftist halftime show and then getting to complain about it for a full week after that. Now, TPUSA offers an alternative. It was excellent in basically every single regard, and now I have nothing to complain about."
On the other hand, the dynamic showed that it didn’t really matter what Bad Bunny said or did: The opposition to him on the right was pre-determined from the start.
Turning Point USA is finding its footing again after Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
The halftime show was a major step for TPUSA as an organization nearly five months after its founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
It marked the first major event for the organization that was not dominated by mourning for its founder or infighting over conspiracy theories, as AmericaFest was.
“This is what Erika Kirk’s leadership looks like,” posted Alex Clark, host of the TPUSA podcast Culture Apothecary.
Further reading: My colleague Julia Manchester dove more into how conservatives are battling over Trump’s Bad Bunny criticism as the GOP sees signs it is quickly losing Hispanic support in polls.
