Before the slightly late start of Turning Point USA’s “All-American Halftime Show,” headlined by Kid Rock and produced to counter MAGA cultural enemy Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl show, the conservative organization’s YouTube channel had about 1.9 million viewers waiting to watch it live, Billboard reported.
That’s a pretty respectable number for the Trump administration-backed show, and it climbed to a more impressive 5 to 6 million across different platforms as it streamed live, according to the New York Post and TMZ.
But that’s still a fraction of the more than 100 million in the United States who were expected to watch Bad Bunny’s epic Latin pop concert live, as the New York Times reported. While the official Nielsen viewership is not out yet, early estimates suggested that Bad Bunny’s show at Levi’s Stadium would be viewed by more that 130 million viewers, and could dethrone the record 133.5 million set by Kendrick Lamar in 2025 to become the most-watched Halftime Show of all time, according to Techweez.com.
An additional 3 million viewers watched the MAGA-coded show on TPUSA’s X page, though it was later taken down due to an unspecified copyright concern, The Sporting Desk reported. Overnight, TPUSA’s event got more than 18 million views on its YouTube channel. But the vast majority of these viewers began watching after Bad Bunny finished his blockbuster performance, as well as after the game itself ended at about 7:20 p.m., with the Seattle Seahawks defeating the New England Patriots 29-13.
So it’s possible that TPUSA fans still watched Bad Bunny’s show before turning to Kid Rock’s, which was designed to be an alternative to the NFL-produced event. Notably, the Daily Beast also reported that Kid Rock didn’t take the stage in whatever studio space TPUSA used until about 20 minutes into the show — again, after Bad Bunny wrapped his live performance before more than 70,000 people in Levi’s stadium.
Kid Rock furthermore faced mockery online because it appeared that he was lip-syncing his way through his opening song, a high-powered rendition of his hit 1999 song “Bawitdaba,” according to the Daily Beast, Billboard and fans online. At one point during his performance, Kid Rock’s vocals could still be heard even as he didn’t have his mic anywhere near his mouth.
“Was Kid Rock doing a really bad job of lip syncing or is my audio out of sync?” one X user wrote about the 55-year-old rap rocker, who took to the stage in a fur vest and his signature black hat.
“Is this a pre-recorded event? Kid Rock is way off on the lip sync,” another user added. A third person said, “I hate to say it, but Kid Rock can’t do his own song anymore,” while a fourth added, “I love kid rock but yes it was that bad. It was in English though. The left will rightly be mocking … but 5 million people had an alternative.”
Bad Bunny and Lady Gaga perform during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)This fourth person is referring to the Puerto Rican artist performing in Spanish, one of the reasons that TPUSA felt compelled to organize its rival show, billed as celebrating “faith, family and freedom” and a way to honor its founder Charlie Kirk, who was killed last year by an assassin. Bad Bunny also represents much of what TPUSA opposes. The history-making, Grammy-winning artist advocates for the LGBTQ community and has publicly criticized Donald Trump and his administration’s hardline immigration policies and deployment of ICE to U.S. cities.
In addition to Kid Rock, the “All-American Halftime Show” featured performances by three country singers who are not known outside of Nashville circles: Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett. The show began about 10 minutes late, understandably waiting until the end of the game’s half.
Gilbert opened the show by playing a Jimi Hendrix-style electric guitar version of “Star Spangled Banner.” Wearing a “God Family Country” T-shirt, Gilbert than declared “this is real America” as he started with the song “Real American.” Brice, meanwhile, paid tribute to Kirk, saying he “gave people microphones so they could say what’s on their mind,” before he started his song “Country Nowadays,” which includes lyrics like “little boys ain’t little girls” and details the difficulties of having “small-town views” in today’s America.
But even TPUSA must have known that it would have a tough time competing with Bad Bunny’s performance in terms of its stadium setting, production values, star power and global audience. The Grammy winner, whose full name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, was supported by scores of backup singers and dancers, multiple sets, pyrotechnic displays and powerhouse singing from fellow superstars Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin.
His 13-minute set, a celebration of Puerto Rican culture, immediately garnered rave reviews, with the Bay Area News Group’s music critic Jim Harrington writing that Bad Bunny delivered “a beautiful statement” of unity. The show wasn’t overtly political, though “surely some will see it as such,” Harrington said. At one point, Bad Bunny kneeled down to hand a Grammy award to a little boy who many thought resembled Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old boy from Minneapolis who was detained by ICE. But for the most part, Harrington said, Bad Bunny let “the music do the talking — yes, in Spanish — and the point was driven home even more soundly than a hundred polished political soundbites could do.”
TPUSA announced the Rock-led alternative concert in October. It was a response to the NFL booking Bad Bunny for its Halftime Show, annually the most-watched live music event on the planet. Trump slammed the NFL for its decision to book Bad Bunny, as did other prominent Republicans. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson called the booking “a terrible decision,” saying Bad Bunny “is not someone who appeals to a broader audience.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the only people who should perform at or attend the Super Bowl are “law-abiding Americans who love this country.”
But when the lineup for the TPUSA show was announced last week, even some of the organization’s supporters expressed disappointment, with people saying that Rock’s best days were behind him and many sharing that they had never heard of Gilbert, Brice or Barrett.
“What did this lineup cost? $1?” one person asked on social media.
Leading into Sunday, Rock faced further backlash over resurfaced lyrics from his 2001 track, “Cool, Daddy, Cool,” in which he sings, “I like ’em underage, see / Some say that’s statutory / But I say it’s mandatory.” These lyrics were seen as especially problematic at a time when national attention is focused on the alleged abuses of underaged girls committed by the late accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
“Rock the Country,” Kid Rock’s upcoming touring “festival for the people,” also began to lose some of its lineup, with at one band expressing concerns that it would be used to promote the rap rocker’s conservative politics, the New York Daily News reported.
“Our band’s purpose is to unite, not divide,” Shinedown said in a statement shared on Instagram late last week. “With that in mind, we have made the decision that we will not be playing the Rock the County Festival,” they wrote. “We know this decision will create differences of opinion. But we do not want to participate in something we believe will create further division.”
Shinedown drummer Barry Kerch also told “The Vinyl Road” podcast last month that the band only learned of the “political leaning” of the Kid Rock’s tour after they signed on to play, and for which they faced “tons” of backlash, the Daily News also reported.
In addition, the band Creed and rapper rapper Ludacris dropped out of performing during Kid Rock’s tour though they have not publicly offered reasons for doing so.