Turning Point USA’s quixotic attempt to challenge the NFL halftime show got off to a rough start Sunday night, even before the Super Bowl LX coin toss.
The conservative group announced it would not be streaming “The All-American Halftime Show” on Elon Musk’s X/Twitter as it had planned.
“UPDATE: Due to licensing restrictions, we are unable to stream The All-American Halftime Show on X,” TPUSA tweeted just after 6 p.m. ET. “Head on over to our YouTube channel tonight around 8PM ET to watch the full show.”
The non-profit has been touting its Kid-Rock led-show as the patriotic alternative to the NFL’s Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show headliner Bad Bunny. The last challenger to successfully counter-program the NFL’s halftime show was Fox’s In Living Color in 1992. This year, there were already plenty of reasons Turning Point’s alternative halftime programming is likely going to flop, but the non-profit will now have to pull it off without the sheer weight of Twitter’s estimated 100 million-plus users in the U.S.
Turning Point, founded by slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, still plans to livestream the concert on its YouTube and Rumble social media channels. It will also air live on smaller cable channels and streaming services such as Real America’s Voice, Charge!, DailyWire+, The National News Desk, and Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), the biggest Christian TV network in the world.
Still, the tweet by TPUSA generated some healthy mockery on social media. By early in the 2nd quarter, their Twitter post had gone viral, generating 3.5 million views and over 5,000 comments.
“I thought this was ‘for the people? What licensing restrictions are involved? lol i guess its not as easy to run a halftime show as you thought?” wrote one Twitter user.
Another fan tweeted: “I hate to say this but this is starting to look like amateur hour. Did you not test the website at different aspect ratios? Website doesn’t list start time or instructions on how to watch? Licensing problems at the last minute?”
