More than 25,000 Super Bowl attendees went home with a special piece of merch — a rally towel featuring a bunny punting a frozen football with the message “ICE OUT,” according to reports.
Activists gave towels to fans entering Levi’s Stadium Sunday to watch the Seattle Seahawks take on the New England Patriots — as well as a halftime performance from Bad Bunny, whose anti-ICE statements and Spanish-speaking music have drawn ire from conservatives, including President Donald Trump.
While the NFL prefers to keep the event free of politics, Bad Bunny, 31, has been an outspoken critic of Trump’s immigration crackdown. A week before taking the Super Bowl stage, the Puerto Rican singer denounced Trump’s aggressive immigration policies, saying “ICE OUT,” while accepting the award for Album of the Year at the Grammys.
About 50 activists with Contra-ICE handed out towels, which featured a cute drawing of a bunny punting a football on one side and the words “ICE OUT” on the other, with the hope that the message would be inescapable inside the stadium, SFGate reported.
The leader of Contra-ICE, Shasti Conrad, noted that giving out the towels is “not the same as the people putting their bodies on the line in Minneapolis,” but that she hoped they were visible during the broadcast.
“I’m a big ‘Joy is resistance’ person,” Conrad told SFGate. “Today is a celebration of American sports, and there are opportunities to really be heard here. It’s about drawing attention to show that there is massive support to challenge Trump and the Department of Homeland Security. Any opportunity to push back is important.”
The group gave out more than 25,000 towels, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The towels were designed by political cartoonist and activist Lalo Alcaraz, and feature a bunny wearing the singer’s signature jibaro hat while holding a grenade in one hand — a tribute to Green Day, who opened the Super Bowl on Sunday.
“Art has always been a way to confront hate wherever it appears,” Alcaraz told the Chronicle. “When injustice becomes part of everyday life, artists have a responsibility to make it visible. In a public space and cultural moment the whole country is watching, images, color, and movement become a way to express love and push back against hate in plain sight.”
Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, also highlighted some political issues during his Super Bowl set, such as the sparkling power poles during “El Apagón” that nodded to the issues of corruption and inequality within the U.S. “commonwealth” of Puerto Rico.
The headline performance has been the subject of protests from MAGA supporters, with some opting to watch the so-called “All-American Halftime Show” organized by Turning Point USA featuring controversial rocker and Trump ally, Kid Rock.
Trump himself also snubbed the Super Bowl, having attended last year’s game, which featured rapper Kendrick Lamar as the halftime performer.
After it was first announced that Bad Bunny – who has been the world’s most-streamed artist on Spotify for four of the last five years – would headline the big game, the president called the pick “absolutely ridiculous” and said he had never heard of the Grammy-winning musician.
While Trump previously claimed he wouldn’t watch Bad Bunny’s set, on Sunday night, he called the show “an affront to the Greatness of America” on Truth Social.
