halftime

For years, Gianni Infantino watched with envy the spectacle of American football breaks. This year, the president of FIFA is going to have what he has been wanting for years: the final of the July 19 World Cup in New Jersey will have the first halftime show from the history of the tournamentwith none other than Madonna, Shakira and BTS as headliners. A decision clearly conceived from the point of view of not stopping to think about the differences between soccer and American football. Elmo tells you. The most watched event on the planet debuts, 96 years after its first edition, a concept that American football has been perfecting for decades. The advertisement came in video form with Chris Martin of Coldplay, Elmo, Gustavo, Miss Piggy and other Muppets to break the news, that at one point they made a call with BTS. The tone was curiously lighthearted for the announcement of an event that handles astronomical figures. Good causes. The production of the event is carried out by the NGO Global Citizenfor which Chris Martin and Coldplay’s manager Phil Harvey are creative curators. The show is linked to the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fundan initiative that wants to raise 100 million dollars to expand access to education and soccer for children around the world, and which has already raised more than 30 million. One dollar from every ticket sold is donated to the fund. There are no precedents. No World Cup final had ever included a half-time show. There are ceremonies (opening, closing, before the opening whistle), but the break was always to rest (and the corresponding commercial break). The Qatar 2022 final, between Argentina and France, had a closing ceremony before the start of the match, with performances by Gims and Ozuna, but no shows in between. What changes. The scale, without a doubt. The 2022 final reached an average live audience of 571 million viewers worldwide, with more than 1.4 billion people watching at least one minute of the match. The 2024 Super Bowl brought together, in comparison, an average of 123.7 million viewers in the United States and about 62.5 million internationally. The platform that FIFA offers to artists who appear in the intermission has no comparison with any other. The problem. The laws of the game established by the IFAB, the international body that regulates football, set the break at a maximum of 15 minutes. A rule that few people notice, but that has a physical reason, which the ESPN analyst explained Gabriele Marcotti: Professional soccer players are conditioned for that maximum recovery interval. Extending it carries real risks of players getting cold or stiff. In the Super Bowl, the break is usually extended to 30 minutes, because the NFL sport includes regular breaks and players are accustomed to long timeouts. According to FIFA has confirmedthe show is planned to last 11 minutes, which in theory would keep it within the regulatory limit. However, it wouldn’t be entirely strange to see the IFAB modify its rules to accommodate the spectacle. But then… who thinks about the players? Little risk. On the other hand, the choice of Madonna, Shakira and BTS is a safe bet. All three have more than proven experience in mass events of this caliber. Madonna’s performance at the 2012 Super Bowl set the audience record for the halftime show with 114 million viewers, a figure that Bruno Mars would surpass two years later. The 2020 show, starring Shakira and Jennifer Lopez, attracted 103 million viewers. Shakira is also already linked to the World Cup thanks to the release of two official anthems: ‘Dai Dai’ in 2026 with the Nigerian Burna Boy, and ‘Waka Waka’ in 2010. BTS, for its part, arrives in the moment of greatest visibility for the band since the group interrupted its activity to complete mandatory military service in South Korea. Your album’ARIRANG’published in March 2026, debuted with record on US chartswhich makes this concert especially suitable for the band. Since April, the group has also been immersed in a world tour. Header | Julio Gómez Braojos