Bad Bunny Super Bowl reactions underscore how Hispanic sports fans remain an overlooked market

The GIST: Despite his global appeal and 12 (!!!) Latin Grammy nominations, there’s continued cultural and political controversy over Puerto Rican megastar Bad Bunny headlining the Super Bowl LX halftime performance, with much of the criticism centering around the singer’s set being entirely in Spanish.

• This take is ignorant for multiple reasons, including because it ignores that the Hispanic sports audience is growing, skews younger, and is quite avid. Let’s explore why this audience deserves focus, especially in women’s sports. Going where she goes.

The data: There’s been consistent, widespread growth of Hispanic fans across several sports, including soccer, basketball, baseball, and football. Hispanic viewership for the Super Bowl is increasing, going from 10% in 2016 to 14% in 2024, while MLB’s World Series saw viewership rise from 10% in 2016 to 15% in 2023.

• The gains are even bigger in women’s sports, especially soccer. Hispanic viewership for the NCAA women’s championship jumped 354% between 2021 and 2024. And in the soccer world, 32% of U.S. women soccer fans identify as Hispanic or Latino, and 2024 participation among teenage Hispanic women was up 82% from 2023 and 185% from 2021.

• Despite this, the marketing opportunity with Hispanic fans has been overlooked. A majority (54%) are likely to be first-time buyers of brands supporting their favorite teams or leagues, and 61% would be more likely to watch a sport if it featured Latinos. Yet only 4% of U.S. marketing focuses on Latino viewers, even though they overindex on avid sports fandom.

Women fans: While specific data on Hispanic women sports fans in the U.S. is lacking, these fans are taking matters into their own hands with DRAFTED, a platform for Latina sports culture. Launched in 2023, the platform reaches 4M people monthly with content and products, and the community it’s built has drawn partnerships with brands, teams, and leagues.

Women’s sports: Women’s sports has catered to its Hispanic audience, but primarily in local markets, especially in soccer. The NWSL offers Spanish language broadcasts and teamed up with Liga MX Femenil for its Summer Cup, while Angel City FC has integrated Spanish into its marketing and campaigns to speak directly to its Hispanic audience, including its Klarna merch partnership.

Zooming out: Unfortunately, the Hispanic market has long been overlooked and even in new data, the opportunity among Hispanic women isn’t being tracked. And despite the NWSL’s marketing efforts, it is the least popular league with ForSoccer’s young Hispanic demographic.

• There’s clearly a strong connection between Hispanic sports fans and avid fandom via culture and language, which is being recognized on the NFL’s biggest stage — Bad Bunny has over 45M followers, with over 20% being from the U.S. Marketers should consider the overlap between Hispanic fans, women who are sports fans, and fans of women’s sports to reach this often overlooked demo. There’s still time…