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UCLA - University of California - Los Angeles
01/28/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 01/28/2026 18:46
UCLA experts: The Super Bowl, Bad Bunny and belonging in America
UCLA experts: The Super Bowl, Bad Bunny and belonging in America
Super Bowl LX represents the pinnacle of one of America's favorite pastimes: football. Plus, there's the spectacle of the halftime show, with one of today's biggest artists, Bad Bunny, who again earned Spotify's top artist title with 19.8 billion streams worldwide in 2025. But this year's main event, now more than ever, also offers a lens into the current moment in America.
UCLA experts are available to weigh in on different aspects of the big game and all that surrounds it, including concussions, marketing, immigration and labor, sports betting, economics, Bad Bunny fandoms and more:
Bad Bunny and the Super Bowl halftime show
The global reach and impact of Latin American music
Loza is a professor of ethnomusicology and global jazz studies at UCLA and directs the UCLA Center for Latino Arts.
His publications include "Tito Puente and the Making of Latin Music" and "Barrio Harmonics: Essays on Chicano / Latino Music," which explores Chicano, Mexican and Cuban musical forms and styles and their transformations in the United States. He has also edited four anthologies, including "Musical Cultures of Latin America: Global Effects, Past and Present" and "Musicología global: pensamientos clasicos y contemporaneos sobre la etnomusicología."
He can speak to the music of Latin America and the United States' relationship with Latin American music.
Email: [email protected]
Belonging and betrayal: Bad Bunny and his fandom
Garcia Hernandez, an assistant professor of Chicana/o and Central American Studies, can discuss fan cultures within Latinx communities. She teaches courses that focus on barrio popular culture and Latinx sexualities, where she explores topics such as the representation of Latinx identities in media and popular culture.
She has commented on and can speak to Bad Bunny's fandom and the politics of belonging, identification and betrayal that fans felt toward his popularity and past romantic life.
Email: [email protected]
The Super Bowl's relationship with rap music and the politics of language and Bad Bunny
Alim is a professor of anthropology and faculty director of the UCLA Hip Hop Initiative. The author or editor of 12 books, he has written extensively about Black language and hip-hop culture globally and is the co-editor of the University of California Press Hip Hop Studies book series. His most recent book, "Freedom Moves: Hip Hop Knowledges, Pedagogies, and Futures" (with Jeff Chang and Casey Wong), travels across generations and beyond borders to understand hip-hop's transformative power as an important cultural movement.
He can comment on rap music at the Super Bowl and the politics of language and bilingualism surrounding Bad Bunny's selection as the Halftime Show performer.
Email: [email protected]
The history and roots of hip-hop and rap
Keyes is a professor of ethnomusicology and global jazz studies and serves as the chair of the department of African American Studies. She is the author of "Rap Music and Street Consciousness," one of the first book-length hip-hop ethnographies and musicological histories of rap. Keyes has written extensively on hip-hop, rap, and African American music, and has served on the executive committee for the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and the National Museum of African American History and Culture's nine-CD box set project "Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap."
She can place Bad Bunny and reggaeton music within the history and ethnography of hip-hop and rap.
Email: Contact UCLA media relations, [email protected]
Puerto Rico and who gets to be American
What they get wrong about Puerto Rico and the historical landscapes surrounding Bad Bunny
Derby is an associate professor of history and the Dr. E. Bradford Burns Chair in Latin American Studies. Part of the Latin American Institute at UCLA, her research includes the modern Caribbean (particularly Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico and Cuba), Latin American political regimes, authoritarianism, state-sponsored terror, U.S. imperialism, cultural history and how notions of race, national identity and witchcraft have been articulated in popular media.
She can speak to Puerto Rico and the United States, as well as the historical relationships between the United States and Latin America that inform Bad Bunny and his art.
Email: Contact the UCLA International Institute, [email protected]
The question of belonging in America
Motomura is an expert in immigration and citizenship law. The Susan Westerberg Prager Distinguished professor of law and faculty co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law, he is the author of several books, including "Borders and Belonging: Toward a Fair Immigration Policy," "Immigration Outside the Law," and "Americans in Waiting" (2006).
He can comment on the impacts of current immigration policies and how to rethink national borders and who belongs in America.
Email: [email protected]
Behind the big game: Marketing, gambling and engaging audiences
The changing dynamics of the Super Bowl's 30-second ads
Johnson served for many years as the faculty director of UCLA Anderson's Center for Management of Enterprise in Media, Entertainment & Sports (MEMES) and continues to serve on their board of advisors. A veteran at ESPN and ABC Sports, his career has included many prior Super Bowl rights and marketplace opportunities. Now, as the founder and CEO of WON Worldwide, a global sports media and entertainment marketing and revenue strategy firm, he continues to lead and advise both marketers and media companies on how to leverage value within sports landscape. Johnson teaches MBA courses on topics such as innovations in sports media/rights and the evolution of sports marketing.
He can comment on the current state of advertising, the changing business models around the Super Bowl and how marketers are amortizing the cost of 30-second ads during the game.
Email: Contact UCLA Anderson School of Management, [email protected]
The Super Bowl, social media and audience engagement
Roberts, a UCLA scholar of internet culture, politics and society and digital labor studies, is faculty director and co-founder of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry, co-director of the Minderoo Initiative on Technology & Power and a research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute. Her book "Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media" is a study of the global workforce of commercial content moderators whose job it is to shield against hateful language, violent videos and online cruelty uploaded by social media users.
She can comment on the impact of technology and social media on worldwide engagement during the Super Bowl.
Email: [email protected]
Sports betting and the changing gambling market
Dr. Fong is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and is the co-director of the UCLA Gambling Studies Program. The program is focused on examining the underlying causes and clinical characteristics of gambling disorder in order to develop effective, evidence-based prevention and treatment strategies.
Dr. Fong can provide comments and opinions about the public health impact of sports betting expansion and how the rapidly changing market of gambling is impacting American society. There is no bigger sports betting event than the Super Bowl, and this year's game is expected to reach an all-time high in sports betting volume.
Email: Contact UCLA Health media relations, [email protected]
Economics and labor
The economic power of the Super Bowl - America's national holiday
Ohanian is a professor of economics and director of the Ettinger Family Program in Macroeconomic Research at UCLA. An expert in macroeconomic theory and policy, business cycles and growth, and the stock market and financial markets, he has also studied sports economics, including the National Football League and Major League Baseball.
He can speak about the economics of the Super Bowl, which he sees as a kind of national holiday, given the high spending and TV viewership.
Email: [email protected]
The workers behind the big game
Narro, a project director with the UCLA Labor Center, is an expert on the workplace rights of immigrant workers and immigration policy. A core faculty member of the UCLA Labor Studies Department and the Public Interest Law and Policy Program at the UCLA School of Law, Narro's work has included studies of street vendors, agricultural workers and the garment industry, among other topics.
He can comment on the labor rights and issues surrounding the Super Bowl.
Email: [email protected]
Large-scale events and immigrant service workers, today's immigrant policies and social movements
Zepeda-Millán is a professor of Chicana/o and Central American studies and of public policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. His research centers on social movements, Latino politics, immigration policy and labor. He has been involved in various social movements related to environmental and global justice, as well as labor, student, immigrant and indigenous rights. He is the author of "Latino Mass Mobilization: Immigration, Racialization, and Activism" and "Walls, Cages & Family Separation: Race and Immigration Policy in the Trump Era."
He can comment on immigrant hospitality workers and their importance to "mega-events," such as the Super Bowl, World Cup and Olympics, as well as the impacts of current immigration policies and the ongoing movements for social change and resistance in this moment.
Email: Contact UCLA media relations, [email protected]
Athletes and injuries on the field
Professional sports, brain health and traumatic brain injuries
Dr. Kevin Bickart, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Bickart is an assistant professor in neurology specializing in sports and behavioral neurology as part of UCLA's BrainSPORT Program, Easton Center for Brain Health and Operation Mend. He is double board-certified in brain injury medicine and behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry. Dr. Bickart's clinical care and research focus on mapping and modulating brain circuits to promote overall brain health and personalized recovery from trauma. He runs the Bickart Lab, co-hosts The Better Brain Podcast and directs the student-led Brain Health Project.
He can comment on brain health and sports-related concussions, including how traumatic brain injuries (TBI) can occur in any sport, and on understanding the links between chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and professional football.
Email: Contact UCLA Health media relations, [email protected]
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