Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Show Now Rules the Live Variety Emmys

The Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show Starring Bad Bunny won seven Creative Arts Emmys on Sept. 5, including Outstanding Variety Special (Live). The 13-minute NBC special, staged Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, also took directing, music direction, choreography, sound mixing, lighting, and technical direction.

Those statues went to a football intermission that ran while the Seattle Seahawks beat the New England Patriots in a game the Television Academy said drew 125 million viewers. The other live-variety nominees were the awards shows that used to own the category.

How a Football Intermission Beat the Oscars

On Sept. 5 the Television Academy gave Outstanding Variety Special (Live) to the Super Bowl LX show, a Roc Nation production starring Bad Bunny as performer and producer. The other nominees were the 83rd Golden Globes, the 68th Grammy Awards, the Oscars, and the 78th Tony Awards, the telecasts that spent a decade treating this prize as their lane.

It is only the second Super Bowl to win that program Emmy, after the 2022 Pepsi show with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, and 50 Cent. It is also the first Spanish-language program to take the category, a fact the booking itself spent months arguing in public.

THE LIVE VARIETY FIELD

• The winner: The Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show Starring Bad Bunny, on NBC.
• The Oscars: ABC’s Academy telecast, with Conan O’Brien hosting.
• The Tonys: the 78th Annual Tony Awards on CBS, with Cynthia Erivo.
• The Grammys: the 68th Annual Grammy Awards on CBS, with Trevor Noah.
• The Globes: the 83rd Annual Golden Globes on CBS, with Nikki Glaser, back in the category for the first time since 2020.

Jay-Z, listed as Shawn Carter, is an executive producer and now has a third Emmy from this franchise, after the 2022 hip-hop show and Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 date. Desiree Perez, Jesse Collins, and Noah Assad shared the producing ticket with Bad Bunny, whose legal name, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is on the performer and producer lines.

Seven Wins, Two Losses and a New Record

The special went into the 78th Emmys with a record nine nominations, three more than Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl LI show in 2017, the previous mark. It left with seven, which Roc Nation called the most-awarded Super Bowl Halftime Show in Emmy history.

The two misses were the decorative crafts. Disney+’s The Muppet Show took production design for a variety special. RuPaul’s Drag Race took hairstyling for a variety, nonfiction or reality program. Every live-ops category on the ballot went the other way.

WHERE THE NINE NOMINATIONS LANDED

The Television Academy’s own night-one recap listed those seven awards on Saturday night as the top haul of the ceremony at the Peacock Theater at L.A. LIVE. The Traitors followed with six. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, in its final season, took five.

Roc Nation Has Been Building This Machine Since 2022

This was not a one-off concert that lucked into a craft ballot. Super Bowl halftime shows have now been nominated for Outstanding Variety Special (Live) seven years running, from Jennifer Lopez and Shakira in 2020 through The Weeknd, the 2022 hip-hop bill, Rihanna, Usher, Kendrick Lamar, and Bad Bunny.

Only two of those shows won the program prize. The 2022 bill was first. Bad Bunny is second. In between, Lamar’s 2025 Apple Music show at the Caesars Superdome took Outstanding Music Direction from four nominations and did not win the program race.

THE HALFTIME EMMY LEDGER

Seven wins is more than twice the 2022 total of three, which had been the high-water mark for a single halftime telecast. The through-line is industrial, not mystical: Roc Nation, Jesse Collins Entertainment, director Hamish Hamilton, and choreographer Charm La’Donna keep returning to the same 13-minute problem, a field that has to become a stage and then vanish before the third quarter.

Hamish Hamilton and the Crew Who Won

Hamilton won Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special. He also directed the 2022 winner. Charm La’Donna shared the choreography Emmy with Karina Ortiz; La’Donna was nominated in the same category for Lamar’s 2025 show and did not win that one. Miguel Gandelman took music direction. Al Gurdon led lighting. Rod Wardell led technical direction and camerawork.

The field itself was the set. A sugar-cane lot, a bodega, a casita, and a wedding party rotated across the Levi’s Stadium grass, with a real ceremony folded into the number and Los Angeles taco operators on camera. Guests included Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, Karol G, Cardi B, Jessica Alba, Pedro Pascal, and Young Miko. Roc Nation said the show drew 4.157 billion views in 24 hours across global broadcast, YouTube, and social platforms, a figure the company logged as a viewership record for the format.

The official NFL cut is the thing the Academy was scoring, a moving street-festival that had to hit network cues in real time.

He opened with his full name and told the stadium he was there because he never stopped believing in himself. He held a Puerto Rico flag in the light-blue independence palette on one of the political numbers. The screens closed on a single line.

The only thing more powerful than hate is love.

Closing message, Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show, Levi’s Stadium

That line was the show’s answer to months of noise around a Spanish-language headliner. The Television Academy’s answer was seven craft statues for the cameras, the lights, the mix, and the dance, which is a colder verdict than a culture war and a more durable one.

Colbert’s Finale Shares the Night With a PBS Drought

The Super Bowl did not take the whole building. Saturday’s ballot was built for unscripted television, and the rest of the room collected its own unfinished business.

SATURDAY NIGHT BESIDE THE HALFTIME SHOW

• The Traitors, 6: Alan Cumming’s third straight host Emmy, plus directing, cinematography, picture editing, production design, and costumes.
• The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, 5: writing, picture editing, lighting, technical direction, and directing by Yvonne De Mare, in the series’ final season.
• The Muppet Show, 4: pre-recorded variety special, writing, picture editing, and the production design the Super Bowl lost, on the 50th anniversary of the original series.
• Love on the Spectrum, 3: unstructured reality for the third time, plus casting and picture editing.

Mariska Hargitay won Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special and Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program for My Mom Jayne, her HBO film about her mother, Jayne Mansfield. The Academy noted the wins came 20 years after her first Emmy, for lead drama actress on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She will host the Primetime telecast on Sept. 14.

Antiques Roadshow won Outstanding Structured Reality Program, its first prize in that category since the Academy created it in 2014, and its first series win after 24 nominations dating to 2002. Jeopardy! won Outstanding Game Show. Jimmy Kimmel won Outstanding Host for a Game Show for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Octavia Spencer won Outstanding Narrator for Lost Women of Alaska. Sabrina Carpenter, as performer and executive producer, took her first Emmy when The Muppet Show won the pre-recorded variety special, beating Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour | The Final Show.

The Eras argument did not end at the podium. On the Academy’s own technical-win post, the pushback was that Super Bowl cameras looked plain next to a concert film built for close-ups. That complaint is the point in reverse. The statues went to a broadcast that had to cover a field, a wedding, a moving crowd, and a network clock, not a locked tour movie.

Bad Bunny Now Holds Two of Four EGOT Prizes

The EGOT math is simple and incomplete. Bad Bunny already had six Grammy Awards, starting with YHLQMDLG for best Latin pop or urban album in 2021. Earlier this year Debí Tirar Más Fotos won album of the year, the first Spanish-language album to do so, plus best música urbana album, and “EoO” won best global music performance. The live-variety Emmy is the second of the four letters. An Oscar and a Tony are still missing.

Carpenter is on the same half-clock, a Grammy winner with a first Emmy and no Oscar or Tony. Neither artist was in the Peacock Theater on Saturday. The statues went to the producing and craft lines, which is how a 13-minute football booking becomes a television credit.

The Apple Music campaign still hosts the official Super Bowl LX set list, the cleanest record of what the Academy was actually judging: NUEVAYoL, El Apagón, Tití Me Preguntó, Lady Gaga on Die With a Smile, BAILE INoLVIDABLE, EoO as a nod to Tego Calderón, Daddy Yankee, and Don Omar, and Ricky Martin on Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii.

Sunday Night Put a Comedy in Front

Sunday’s Creative Arts show, Sept. 6, was a different ballot, scripted crafts and guest acting. Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay led that night with eight Emmys. Apple TV as a whole took 18 on Sunday. DTF St. Louis won six, including supporting actor and actress in a limited series for David Harbour and Linda Cardellini. Across both Creative Arts nights, Widow’s Bay sat first with eight and the Super Bowl show sat second with seven, tied no longer with The Traitors on six.

FXX will run edited highlights of the Saturday and Sunday shows on Sept. 12 at 8 p.m. ET/PT, with Hulu the next day. The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards telecast airs live Monday, Sept. 14, on NBC and Peacock, with Hargitay hosting a week after she picked up two statues for her mother’s film.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Songs Did Bad Bunny Perform at Super Bowl LX?

Apple Music’s posted set is NUEVAYoL, El Apagón, Tití Me Preguntó, Die With a Smile with Lady Gaga, BAILE INoLVIDABLE, EoO, and Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii with Ricky Martin. Pregame, Coco Jones sang Lift Every Voice and Sing, Brandi Carlile sang America the Beautiful, and Charlie Puth sang the national anthem with Fred Beam in American Sign Language.

How Many Emmys Did the 2022 Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show Win?

Three: Outstanding Variety Special (Live), Outstanding Music Direction, and Outstanding Production Design for a Variety Special. That bill, starring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, and 50 Cent, was the first Super Bowl telecast to win the live variety program prize.

How Many Latin Grammys Does Bad Bunny Have?

Seventeen, on top of the six Grammy Awards that already counted toward EGOT math before the Super Bowl Emmy. The Latin Grammy total is a separate circuit and does not substitute for the Oscar or the Tony still required to finish the four-letter set.

When Do the Creative Arts Emmys Air on Television?

They are not carried live. FXX will broadcast an edited combined special from the Saturday and Sunday Peacock Theater shows on Saturday, Sept. 12, at 8 p.m. ET/PT, and the same cut is set to stream on Hulu the following day.

Did Stephen Colbert’s YouTube Show Win a Separate Emmy?

Yes. Colbert Before Air, produced for YouTube by CBS Studios, won Outstanding Short Form Comedy, Drama or Variety Series, counted apart from the five Emmys the Late Show series itself won for writing, editing, lighting, technical direction, and directing in its final season.