How Unhealthy Bunny went from Tremendous Bowl supporting act to headliner with ticket gross sales to rival Taylor Swift | Fortune – Company Technique & Outlook

In simply ten years, Unhealthy Bunny, whose actual title is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, reworked from a SoundCloud rapper to a six-time Grammy winner, turning into the primary Latin and Spanish-speaking artist to win album of the yr. On his highway to the Tremendous Bowl, the artist has made a record-breaking impression on the U.S. financial system.

Since 2018, the artist has launched into six live performance excursions. His newest tour, No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí—“I don’t wish to go away right here” in English—hosted on the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum in San Juan (identified regionally as “El Choli”), generated an estimated $400 million from 31 live shows, in accordance with Wells Fargo. Past ticket gross sales, the 600,000 attendees the residency introduced in generated an estimated $733 million for Puerto Rico, in accordance with the Related Press. The artist’s earlier live shows additionally netted excessive sums. His World’s Hottest Tour turned the highest-grossing tour in a calendar yr, bringing in additional than $435 million throughout 81 reveals and 1.9 million ticket gross sales (though Taylor Swift shattered that report the next yr by practically $600 million).

Unhealthy Bunny has additionally repeatedly topped Spotify’s charts because the most-streamed artist globally, most not too long ago successful the title in 2025 with practically 20 billion streams.

This won’t be the singer’s first look on the Tremendous Bowl. In 2020, the Puerto Rican native carried out with Shakira and Jennifer Lopez. However since then, the artist has reworked himself from a that includes artist into a global phenomenon reportedly price $100 million. 

From SoundCloud to the Tremendous Bowl

Born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, a municipality within the outskirts of San Juan, Unhealthy Bunny was raised in a lower-middle class family. His father was a truck driver and his mom was an English instructor. The singer labored at a grocery retailer throughout faculty. In his off time, he uploaded songs he made on his personal to SoundCloud, the world’s greatest audio platform. In 2016, his tune “Dile” earned multiple million streams. The then 22-year-old singer quickly had producers blowing up his telephone.

Unhealthy Bunny’s path from SoundCloud artist to a world platform was accelerated by strategic collaborations and a cultural setting ripe for Latino artists. The artist broke by to a mainstream American viewers by way of collaborations with artists like Cardi B and Drake. These partnerships had been a commerce off for each Unhealthy Bunny and the American artists, in accordance with cultural historian Jared Bahir Browsh.

“They’re internationalizing their fan base whereas he’s gaining a footing in English-speaking nations by these collaborations,” Browsh advised Fortune. 

Leveraging worldwide stardom for market growth

The choice to have Unhealthy Bunny carry out at this yr’s halftime present was a calculated transfer by the NFL and Roc Nation—Jay-Z’s leisure firm that has overseen the halftime present since 2019—to capitalize on the artist’s worldwide enchantment. Worldwide audiences compose a big share of the NFL’s viewership. In a dialog with ESPN final November, Marissa Solis, the NFL’s senior vp of world model and client advertising, stated the U.S. Latino inhabitants was a “essential progress space.”

Browsh refutes the concept the NFL selected Unhealthy Bunny as a political stunt. The artist sparked controversy final yr for refusing to tour within the U.S. due to ICE issues, inflicting outrage amongst critics and galvanizing the creation of a derivative halftime present hosted by Turning Level USA, the conservative nonprofit based by Charlie Kirk. As a substitute, Browsh stated the NFL and Roc Nation’s selecting Unhealthy Bunny was purely a enterprise determination.

“He’s coming off an enormous tour and he’s coming off being the highest artist by way of streaming and report gross sales final yr,” Browsh stated.

Latinos each at house and overseas are the NFL’s fastest-growing fanbase. And about one-third of the NFL’s followers are from exterior of the U.S., in accordance with Nielsen. The NFL is leaning into their fanbase’s shifting demographic, launching a world partnerships program in 2022 to develop its worldwide attain.

“It’s a enterprise and so there’s all the time a tradeoff,” Browsh stated of Unhealthy Bunny’s halftime efficiency. “He will get the visibility of the most important sporting occasion within the U.S. and so they get entry to these new markets.”