The Untold Story Behind Bad Bunny’s Historic Super Bowl Halftime Show

[Narrator] From transforming a football field

into a Puerto Rican landscape,

launching nearly 10,000 pyrotechnics

and blessing a couple's union,

here's how Bad Bunny's incredible

Super Bowl halftime show came to life.

Each time, in its nearly 60-year history,

putting on the Super Bowl halftime show gets harder.

While last year's Super Bowl with Kendrick Lamar

had to grapple with bringing a gutted GNX

onto a stage on sensitive turf,

this year's hurdles related to recreating

Bad Bunny's home of Puerto Rico

at Levi's Stadium's real grass field

in under eight minutes.

The NFL's guidelines for this year wouldn't allow

more than 25 carts to transfer equipment onto the field,

as they can tear up the grass.

To solve the problem, Bruce and Shelly Rodgers,

the legendary producers behind the halftime show

for nearly two decades, came up with an idea:

getting nearly 380 people

to become sugarcane and other plants instead.

Under their plan, the sets would be safely rolled out

on 25 carts equipped with turf tires.

Meanwhile, palm trees and telephone poles

would be rolled out in a similar way

to how the streetlights were placed

for Lamar's street scene from the previous Super Bowl.

The team only had a few weeks

to fabricate, sort set pieces

and balance authenticity with logistical realities.

Bruce Rodgers told WIRED,

It was very dramatic and intense.

But in the end, Bad Bunny did get

to dance around the set he wanted:

the casita, the vintage truck,

and the Vega Baja feel,

even if the plants were alive

in a way he might not have imagined.

Sunday's fiery arsenal was the biggest

of any Super Bowl halftime show

in the last 20 or more years.

Bad Bunny's set required 9,852 theatrical pyrotechnics,

like color, smoke, and fireworks.

This included the finale's massive Puerto Rican flags,

which lit up the sky as the performers left the field.

Oh, and about that wedding scene,

it was a real couple.

Bad Bunny has gotten hundreds of wedding invites

from fans over the years,

and he wanted to celebrate at least one couple's nuptials,

Bruce Rodgers says.

Bad Bunny's performance comes at a markedly fraught time

for America and American sports.

The artist, who took home three trophies at the Grammys,

has not performed in the U.S.

as part of his current world tour

over fears of ICE raids happening at his concerts.

But despite the opposition,

Bad Bunny's show ended with a message of unity,

scoring a touchdown and waving flags

from all over the Americas.

Shelly Rodgers explains the performance

is a way of saying, We're all the same,

and we're all on this journey together.