BTS, Madonna, Shakira to headline first World Cup halftime show

BTS, Madonna, Shakira sign for World Cup halftime show in Mexico City

Muhammad Asghar | GlobalBeat

The World Cup will stage its first dedicated halftime spectacle on July 19 at Azteca Stadium with BTS, Madonna, and Shakira.

FIFA signed the trio for a 12-minute medley that will stop play between the 60th and 75th minute of the final, breaking 96 years of halftime abandonment to changing rooms and television advertising.

Broadcasters had lobbied for an American-style intermission since the 1994 U.S. tournament, but soccer lawmakers feared disrupting momentum and angering travelling supporters who pay for 90-minute tickets. The explosion of short-form clips on phones and the governing body’s hunt for new sponsors flipped the calculus, sources told GlobalBeat.

BTS will open the segment from a circular stage wheeled to the centre circle, performing their 2021 English-language hit “Butter” before Madonna appears with a yet-untitled new single. Shakira closes the set with a re-worked “Waka Waka,” the anthem she first sang at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, organizers confirmed.

“We are not turning football into the Super Bowl,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino said at the signing ceremony in Zurich. “We are giving the world a shared water-cooler moment in the middle of its biggest match.”

The concept emerged after the 2022 Qatar final drew 1.5 billion viewers at the break even though players left the pitch, internal FIFA data showed. Consultants estimated a star-heavy performance could add 300 million live viewers and sell 30-second slots for $2.2 million each, a price tag usually reserved for Olympic ceremonies.

Negotiations accelerated when Colombia withdrew as 2025 host and Mexico stepped in with government pledges of extra security funding. Officials here see the July 19 final as a rehearsal for the expanded 48-team tournament Mexico will co-host in 2031, and lobbied Infantino to green-light the experiment.

“Azteca invented the wave in 1986, now it can invent the football halftime,” Mexican Football Federation president Mikel Arriola told reporters. He said 15,000 temporary seats will rotate toward the stage, while the remaining 70,000 ticket-holders watch circular screens suspended from the roof.

K-pop fans crashed the Ticketmaster site for 42 minutes when organisers released 15,000 “show-only” passes at $440 each. Secondary markets listed seats for $2,600 within an hour, exceeding face value of the final itself, according to tracking firm StubCompare.

Madonna’s casting ends a six-year absence from live stadium gigs after the 60-year-old singer cancelled 2019 tour dates for knee surgery. Publicists said she will train with Cirque du Soleil acrobats who will lift her above the pitch on a steel hoop, a nod to her 2012 Super Bowl entrance.

Travelling supporters greeted the news with mixed reviews. England fan group @englandsaway tweeted “We came for football, not karaoke,” while Argentine club groupings pre-ordered 4,000 seats in the rotating section. Brazilian supporters started an online petition to add Anitta, demanding Latin America get two slots given the region supplies half of the remaining teams.

Security planners face a 7-minute stage roll-in window twice, once for construction and once for removal. Soldiers will practise the drill at 2 a.m. for the next three weeks to avoid damaging the hybrid Bermuda grass, stadium director Gabriel Guerra said. The grass was relaid in April at a cost of $1.8 million after experts warned heavy equipment could tear up the surface and affect play.

Players learnt of the plan on Tuesday through captains’ WhatsApp groups. “If we are losing I’m not waving at Madonna,” one forward wrote, screen-grabs showed. France coach Didier Deschamps told radio station RMC that coaches will receive extra cooling breaks, extending total stoppage time to roughly 25 minutes.

Background

Soccer has resisted halftime entertainment since the first World Cup in Uruguay, 1930, fearing the sport would copy American football’s commercial excess. Rugby union, cricket and even Olympic opening ceremonies all adopted mid-event shows, but football kept the tunnel march sacred, allowing only military bands or youth penalty shoot-outs.

The idea resurfaced each decade: FIFA studied a joint Pavarotti-Diana Ross segment for USA ’94, considered flying the Three Tenors between 1998 Paris semifinals, and discussed a Beyoncé appearance at Johannesburg 2010. Each time domestic leagues objected, arguing extra minutes would wreck global TV schedules fixed months in advance.

What’s Next

Rehearsals start July 5 inside a sealed Mexico City hangar built to equal Azteca’s exact dimensions. If ratings beat forecasts, FIFA will propose a rotating continent model that allots halftime rights to the tournament’s regional broadcaster, with Apple, Amazon and Disney already bidding for 2031 U.S. rights that would include the show.

The governing body will weigh backlash from purists against an estimated $75 million profit, a sum equal to prize money for the winning team. “If fans boo, we pull the plug,” Infantino admitted, hinting the experiment could be one-and-done if reception turns hostile.

Whether football embraces American spectacle or reclaims its Spartan roots will be decided in 12 spotlight minutes, a sliver of pop noise inserted into the planet’s most watched game.