The Emmy ballot just treated a Super Bowl halftime and a farewell concert film as peer craft objects — not side curiosities. That is the real signal in this week’s nominations, more than the celebrity names on the tickets.
According to Variety, “The Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show Starring Bad Bunny” collected nine Emmy nominations, the most for any Super Bowl halftime in Emmy history. Taylor Swift’s concert film “The Eras Tour: The Final Show” earned its own slate, including a variety special (pre-recorded) nod with Swift credited as a producer — her second Emmy nomination.
What the nominations actually cover
Bad Bunny’s live special was nominated for outstanding variety special (live), plus production design, choreography, technical direction and camerawork, directing, hairstyling, and lighting design/direction for a special. That spread is not a vanity cluster around a single star turn; it is a craft map of how a stadium broadcast is built under extreme time pressure.
Swift’s film was nominated in variety special (pre-recorded), picture editing for variety programming, directing for a variety special, technical direction and camerawork for a special, and sound mixing for a variety series or special. Sabrina Carpenter also landed a variety special (pre-recorded) nomination for Disney’s “The Muppet Show,” Variety reported.
Elsewhere on the Creative Arts side, Variety noted Oscar-winning costume designer Colleen Atwood among nominees for “Wednesday,” with composers Kris Bowers, Hans Zimmer, and Daniel Pemberton also prominent. Pemberton was a double nominee for “Slow Horses” and the original song “The Devil You Know” from “Spider-Noir”; Bowers earned a nod for the “Spider-Noir” score. Makeup effects department head Barrie Gower reached an 11th nomination for “Stranger Things.”
Why this matters for entertainment audiences
For years, awards chatter treated Super Bowl halftime as sports-adjacent marketing and concert films as deluxe souvenirs. Nine nominations for Bad Bunny’s show — and a multi-category run for Swift’s filmed finale — argue the opposite: television’s peer groups are scoring these events as high-end variety production, with the same technical categories that decide whether a live or pre-recorded special “works” on screen.
That distinction matters for how studios and streamers budget the next cycle. A live stadium special that can compete across lighting, camera, choreography, and direction becomes a prestige asset, not only a ratings spike. A concert film that can win editing and sound categories becomes a second theatrical/streaming life with awards gravity, not just a tour archive dump.
The timing also frames the race. Variety reports Emmy voting ends Aug. 26, with Creative Arts Emmys on Sept. 5 and 6 and the Primetime Emmy Awards on Sept. 14. Between now and then, campaigns will lean on craft reels as much as star clips — especially for the Bad Bunny package, where the record nomination count invites voters to treat the show as a production case study.
Context the headline race can miss
Hollywood Reporter coverage of the broader 2026 Emmy field has already placed Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl special inside the competitive variety special (live) conversation alongside other major live telecasts, underscoring that the category is no longer a soft landing for one-off events. Pair that with Swift’s second Emmy nomination as a producer on a concert film, and the through-line is clear: music’s biggest live brands are being scored as television authors, not guests on TV’s stage.
None of that guarantees wins. It does change the conversation on AXO’s Entertainment desk about where cultural power sits in 2026 awards season — in the stadium, on the tour screen, and in the craft departments that make both look inevitable.
What’s next
Watch how networks and streamers package behind-the-scenes material before Aug. 26 voting closes, and whether Creative Arts wins in September reshape how next year’s Super Bowl and tour-film partners pitch Emmy campaigns. The nominations already moved the goalposts; the trophies will show whether voters follow through.