For the first time in the tournament’s history, the FIFA World Cup Final had a halftime show, and it delivered one of the most ambitious live music events ever staged at a sporting fixture. With Spain and Argentina set to face off in the championship match at New York New Jersey Stadium, Justin Bieber, Madonna, Shakira, and BTS co-headlined the performance, with the entire show curated by Coldplay’s Chris Martin and produced by Global Citizen in partnership with Live Nation.
The Performers
Madonna came out alongside Brazilian football legends Ronaldinho and Ronaldo, a pairing that collapsed the distance between sport and music into a single image.
BTS, rocking a representative “7” on their jerseys, delivered their global hit “Dynamite” in a sea of red. At the same time, Shakira and Burna Boy returned to the stage having performed their official World Cup song “Dai Dai” during the opening ceremony. Justin Bieber, Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel, and the PS22 Chorus, featuring Chris Martin himself, rounded out a lineup that moved between pop, classical, and global sounds in a single performance.
The Muppets from Sesame Street also appeared, their inclusion reinforcing the show’s stated purpose of ensuring children everywhere have access to quality education.
The Purpose
The halftime show supported the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund, an initiative aiming to raise $100 million to expand access to quality education and football opportunities for children worldwide. Chris Martin described the show plainly as being “all about togetherness, and everyone’s invited,” which was the clearest summation of what FIFA and Global Citizen were building toward: a performance with a function beyond entertainment, broadcast live to millions of viewers around the world simultaneously.
The Crowd
Off the field, the stadium buzzed with an unparalleled roster of famous faces, from David Beckham and Jay-Z to Tom Cruise and Kylie Jenner, while 50,000 fans gathered on Central Park’s Great Lawn for the largest FIFA World Cup Final watch party in the world, with giant screens and live entertainment carrying the halftime show beyond the stadium and into the city itself. For a tournament that has consistently pushed the boundaries of what a sporting event can be, the first World Cup halftime show was exactly the scale the moment called for.
