Did the NFL try to SABOTAGE the TPUSA halftime show?!

What this episode is about

The discussion centers on concerns regarding the cultural direction of the Super Bowl halftime show, with contributors arguing that the event has shifted away from family-friendly content and American values. Jack Basobic reflects on the motivation behind creating an alternative halftime show, inspired by the belief that the main event should showcase virtues that align with the nation’s ideals rather than a display of debauchery.

Key takeaways

• The Super Bowl halftime show: debauchery or a missed opportunity for American values on a global stage?
• Halftime shows aimed at global appeal risk alienating traditional fans—NFL's balancing act might just tip.
• Hank Williams Jr.'s guitar smashing saga highlights cultural clashes more gripping than any touchdown.
• Jack Basobic's halftime initiative challenges the 'woke' narrative—impact measured by 30 million online views.
• NFL's global ambitions shine a light on America's cultural divisions—when did sports prioritize world over home?

Who speaks in this episode?

• Glenn Beck (Guest) · 8 min speaking
• Jack Posobiec (Guest) · 5 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Jack Basobic, NFL, Turning Point USA
2. 3:00 – 6:00: NFL, David and Goliath, Turning Point USA, Henry Louis Gates Jr.
3. 6:00 – 9:00: Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk, Christmas Sweater
4. 9:00 – 12:00: YouTube, NFL
5. 12:00 – 13:07: Jack Basobic, Christmas Sweater, Turning Point USA

Notable quotes from "Did the NFL try to SABOTAGE the TPUSA halftime show?!"

• Let me go to Jack Basobic who is a Turning Point USA contributor, host of Human Events Daily. I think, and Jack, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm sure you're not going to take all the credit,.

  about Jack Basobic · at 0:00

• Going back to a word that we used before where they want to go global because this is what the NFL wants. The NFL wants to compete with the World Cup.

  about NFL · at 2:16

• So, here's what I can say. We say I knew that this would be and Kid Rock himself came up, Bob came out and said, It's David and Goliath. This is what he was referring to because I knew that by picking a fight with the biggest.

  about David and Goliath · at 4:59

• Me. what he's saying is absolutely right. I had a deal with I think it was either Warner Brothers or Paramount, a movie deal for the Christmas sweater. 2 million books, easy, done. They were all over me. I think we had two companies.

  about Christmas Sweater · at 8:23

• You not being able to stream on X actually helped us with YouTube because it drove all those people to the YouTube audience to that stream. So, it becomes the number one US stream in American history. Number two YouTube live stream.

  about YouTube · at 10:11

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Jack Basobic — Person · Main guest (interviewee) · 3 mentions · first at 0:00
  He is credited with helping initiate the idea of doing an independent 'halftime show' and describes alleged industry gatekeeping (venues, rights, platforms) encountered while executing it with Turning Point USA.
• Charlie Kirk — Person · Referenced leader / inspiration figure · 1 mention · first at 7:47
  Presented as the long-time inspiration behind the alternative halftime-show idea and as a values-based critic of the Super Bowl halftime show direction; implicitly tied to Turning Point USA’s strategy and messaging.
  And, kind of got the ball rolling, but ultimately, I would say the inspiration for the Super Bowl halftime show was Charlie himself because Charlie was always for years, even…
• Henry Louis Gates Jr. — Person · Referenced cultural figure / anecdotal example · 1 mention · first at 3:03
  Used as an emblem of 'middle America' NFL culture and as an example of being 'cancelled'; Beck recounts a story about Williams destroying NFL-branded guitars and saving one for Beck.
  Denying, dividing, and cancelling the core of what you we were built on in the first place. NFL is middle America. This is Hank Williams Jr., remember, he got cancelled and…

Books & papers

• Christmas Sweater — Book · Referenced work · 3 mentions · first at 8:30
  Mentioned in a personal anecdote about cultural pushback and publishing industry challenges

Companies & orgs

• NFL — Company · Business focus · 4 mentions · first at 2:21
  Central to the discussion about cultural influence and competition with Turning Point USA's alternative halftime show
• Turning Point USA — Company · Business focus · 4 mentions · first at 0:02
  Organization behind the alternative Super Bowl halftime show discussed in the episode
  Let me go to Jack Basobic who is a Turning Point USA contributor, host of Human Events Daily. I think, and Jack, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm sure you're not going to take all the credit, but I would say that you were the guy.
• YouTube — Company · Platform · 3 mentions · first at 10:12
  Platform where the alternative halftime show was streamed, achieving record viewership

Concepts & topics

• David and Goliath — Concept · Key argument · 2 mentions · first at 5:07
  Used as a metaphor for Turning Point USA's challenge against the NFL's cultural dominance

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Let me go to Jack Basobic who is a Turning Point USA contributor, host of Human Events Daily. Uh I think, and Jack, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm sure you're not going to take all the credit, but I would say that you were the guy who said we should do a halftime show. We should do it ourselves. And I'm sure there were other people uh involved in that, but good job, Jack. Good job. Well, well, Glenn, thank thank you so much for that and and all of your uh praise uh you know, in the past couple of days and your support for it going into it. Look, I I may have been the guy who said we should go ahead and do this and, you know, kind of got the ball rolling, but but ultimately, I would say the inspiration for the Super Bowl halftime show was Charlie himself because Charlie was always for years, even back before Turning Point really got off the ground and we were pulling up old tweets and just remembering old

0:56 conversations that we had had where he was constantly going on. He said this the way they were doing the halftime show that you know at the Super Bowl is becoming so just a a scene of debauchery. He said it's not familyfriendly. And then more and more increasingly it was not putting America at the center, our virtues and our values at the center. And we found a clip actually cuz we would talk about this off air all the time and we found a clip and I'm sure there's more but the one that we found was from a couple years back where he was saying the the halftime show should be the virtues that you want to extol throughout the nation because this is the pinnacle of of a cultural event that you know is going to have the most eyeballs year on year.

1:40 They know that we know that. Yep. And it's not just um America. I mean, this is the biggest calling card every year in the world. People watch it all over the world. And I got to believe, if I was an enemy of the United States and I watched that, I thought, "These people are about to implode." When you don't have a word of English spoken during the halftime of Super Bowl, that tells you something. And it seemed to me almost to be like a hostile takeover.

2:10 Well, and you look at it, too. It's it's the division. It's it's globalism is is just the obvious word for it. And you going back to a word that we used before where where they want to go global because this is what the NFL wants. The NFL wants to compete with the World Cup. They want to compete on the global stage. Everyone knows the World Cup. That's the big one. And and predominantly when you're talking about a Hispanic audience, Spanish speaking audience.

2:33 They don't watch American football as much. They watch the World Cup. They watch soccer because that's their culture, by the way. and and what they're trying to do from a monetary perspective, from a fiscal perspective, which by the way, from, you know, from a pure capitalist perspective, I don't have a problem with trying to expand your audience, but don't do so by denying, dividing, and cancelling the core of what you we were built on in the first place. NFL is middle America. This is Hank Williams Jr., remember, he got cancelled and Hank Williams Jr. used to be the opening song, the iconic song, are you ready for some football on Monday night built the NFL and we saw NASCAR do this when they went woke to try in search of a a broader audience. We're now starting to see the NFL or not not starting to see, we've seen the NFL do this for years. And that's just all of this is what drove me to say we have to do it.

3:32 This is the time. I have to tell you, uh, Hank found out, just side note, Hank found out about him being cancelled on Monday Night Football listening to this program, and he told me about a year later, and he picked up the NFL guitar, you know, the one that he had, and he just smashed it to death. Um, and he I think he had like five or 10 of them, and he smashed all of them in this rage while he was listening. He picked up the last one and he was about to smash and he went, "No, this one goes to Glenn Beck." About a year later, he gave me the only Monday Night Football guitar that's that's left. He saved for me. It's crazy. Anyway,

4:14 so he didn't he didn't want any of them. He he said, "Cut it all off." No, he all of it. All of it. He didn't He was so angry. Um, so I don't know if you saw my monologue yesterday. I talked about how this was a brilliant. We all saw that.

4:32 Okay, good. We were all sharing that around because people are people were saying that's a stupid move. Blah blah blah. It didn't do anything. Oh, it will. I mean, you know, when you have 30 million people online within 24 hours watching it, you've made a real impact. And look out. I have heard, and I don't know if it's true, I've heard the NFL tried to get you guys not to do it. Is that true? So, here's what I can say. We say I knew that this would be and Kid Rock himself came up, Bob came out and said, "It's David and Goliath." This is what he was referring to because I knew that by picking a fight with the biggest cabal in America, bigger than the Democrats, right? We're talking Hollywood, we're talking corporate America, the biggest sports event in the country, the the most money that goes into this thing because it has the most cultural power that we were going to that we were going

5:35 up against the we were going up against Goliath. We were just literally going up against Goliath. I had no idea what would happen. I don't think we realized the ways that they can get you, the ways that they can gatekeep you and block you. Now, look, I'm not going to sit here and say that I that you know, I have an email from Roger Goodell that says you shall not do this, right? Because they're, you know, they're clean. They're 100 they're going to they're going to do it clean. But everybody knows, and this is the way that these elite events work,

6:05 is that it's a trickle down system, but they they're all connected through the sponsorships, the advertisers, the venues, the musicians, the music, right, the labels. Because we had, len we at times where artists would tell us, "Love to do it. Can't wait." Cuz when you start one of these things, of course, you cast a wide net. You say, "Okay, who's available?" You look into who's on tour, who's around. We only had three months to be able to to even do this. So, and then when it comes to venues, oh, we'd love to do it. We have availability. But then something would always happen, Glenn, somewhere along the line in that conversation with I want to say at a very large percentage of people we talked to, suddenly it was, oh, you know, something came up and we just can't do it

6:46 or oh, we just can't have it. And then they play games with the rights to the songs as well where the artists because because the publishers and the licensers have the song. This is of course and people know publicly this is what happened with X uh and I could talk about that too is they would say you know you can have that artist but you can't they can't play this song this song this song and this song or if you play it you can't broadcast it on X like all of these things or there there were even I'll just say there were stuff that we wanted to do and that we had artists who wanted to do that we were told at the last minute that you are not permitted to do And

7:29 this is something we would have gotten and and and they would have sued us tens of millions in liabilities where

7:39 we had had permission from so many people that were close to it but somewhere back in the office someone says no turning point USA with with Pobic and Kvet and and Charlie Kirk spam no and there were I'll even tell you there were some emails that we got that were actually not not so pleasant. too about um you know, hey, we you know, real sorry about what happened to Charlie, but we don't want to do business with you.

8:03 The end. We we've got all of and and so can I say it was the NFL definitively? Of course, right? You know, of course we we can't say that definitively, but we know what was going on here.

8:16 So, it's amazing. If you hadn't have if I hadn't have lived through this, I would maybe have a hard time going, "Well, you don't really know." No, trust me. what he's saying is absolutely right. I mean, uh, you know, I I had a deal with I think it was either Warner Brothers or Paramount, a movie deal for the Christmas sweater. 2 million books, easy, done. They were all over me. I think we had two two uh companies bidding against against each other for the rights to it. The minute the the White House got involved, it was actually Van Jones got involved. Uh, and all of a sudden it was like, uh, yeah, we own the rights, but we're not going to do anything with it. You're like, what? What? What? What? What do you mean you're not going to do anything with it?

8:58 Um, and this happens all the time in our world, but it only happens, Jack, when you're making a difference. That that shows how terrified they were of this. And I'm telling you, next year, make it bigger, make it better, because you will slowly bleed that audience. you're not going to hurt the the football part of the Super Bowl because that's unique to the NFL and nobody can replace that. But if you hurt them pregame, halftime postgame they can't charge all that money. I mean, it it will really hurt the NFL. Really hurt. And they're going to say, "No, it doesn't affect us at all."

9:40 Believe me, five years from now, the they're freaking out now. five years from now they'll be freaking out publicly. Well, I can tell you by the way that I I did have a source that uh through one of the NFL just sort of a you know marketing department kind of a firm that they use who was telling us they they're fur even that night that they were furious absolutely furious when they saw the numbers that we did and then it becomes the number one actually the X you not being able to stream on X actually helped us with YouTube because it drove all those people to the YouTube audience uh to that stream. So, it becomes the number one

10:20 number one US stream in American history. Number two YouTube live stream worldwide ever. Ever. More than the World Cup. Uh more than than any other sporting event, entertainment event, you name it. The only thing I actually looked this up. The only live stream that was that was more was when India landed their lunar probe, you know, a couple of years ago. You're going up against Yeah. You're going up against 1.8. 8 billion people. I said, but then of course I said, "Well, guys, next year obviously you know what this means. We just have to go big. We're doing it on the moon." What do you say?

10:57 Right. With with maybe the prime minister of India. Um we'll get right. Uh people are people are saying that uh you guys paid for that. This was all this was all hype. These weren't real people. You paid for all that. Well, you know, if if if people think that was true, which number one, I don't even know how to do, but if that were true, then then please go ahead and do your own and show us how it's paid for or just go ahead and beat us. Go beat us tomorrow, right? Just go out and pay for the, you know, and that's that's what's silly. If if this were able to be done, which by the way, Glenn, we we were talking to YouTube the entire night.

11:30 They were telling us, they were checking in. They can see this on the back end. They can see the heat maps about where the, you know, the the the audience is coming from. It's it's just it's you know they would know what what traffic because YouTube of course has has uh you know rates as well because they have advertisers so they can't you know if they're selling fake traffic to their advertisers then they're committing fraud. YouTube's not going to allow that and they never once reported a single issue like that to us.

12:00 Jack Basobic from TPUSA. Uh it's always good to talk to you. Say hello to your wife. You married her. say hello to your

12:08 I will and and likewise by the way Glenn I don't know if you remember but quick story on Christmas sweater uh 2006 I think uh if I remember correctly when you brought the Christmas sweater to the Kimmel Center you and I were backstage there together before you went up on the uh to do the show and it was phenomenal phenomenal

12:25 kidding me thank you gosh what a great memory what a great memory Jack was before you moved to New York

12:33 yeah it was it was I was uh Uh, nope. Christmas sweater was the year before I went to Fox. So, I was living in Connecticut. I had just left Philadelphia.

12:43 Oh, you just moved. Okay. Got it. Yeah. Just moved. Yeah. But anyway, Jack, thanks so much. God bless you, man. Appreciate it. And congratulations to everyone at TPUSA. High praise. High praise. Keep it up.

12:54 Well, hey, Glenn, you you showed us how to do it, man. You showed us. Thanks. Thanks, man.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Did the NFL try to SABOTAGE the TPUSA halftime show?!"?

Glenn Beck (Guest), Jack Posobiec (Guest).

What is "Did the NFL try to SABOTAGE the TPUSA halftime show?!" about?

The discussion centers on concerns regarding the cultural direction of the Super Bowl halftime show, with contributors arguing that the event has shifted away from family-friendly content and American values. Jack Basobic reflects on the motivation behind creating an alternative halftime show, inspired by the belief that the main event should showcase virtues that align with the nation’s ideals…

What is mentioned in this Glenn Beck episode?

8 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Jack Basobic, NFL, Turning Point USA, YouTube, Charlie Kirk, David and Goliath. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Did the NFL try to SABOTAGE the TPUSA halftime show?!"?

The episode runs 13 min; the transcript is about 2,514 words in 26 timestamped sections.

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