World Cup 2026 Features First Halftime Show with Global Stars

For the first time, the World Cup final will include a halftime show. This event will feature celebrities from six continents celebrating soccer. The show will commence around 3:45 PM ET and air on Fox, Fox One, Telemundo, the Fox Sports app, and Peacock in Spanish. It will last approximately 11 minutes.

Chris Martin from Coldplay selected the lineup, which includes:

• Justin Bieber
• Madonna, whose new album hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200
• Shakira, known as the World Cup queen
• Burna Boy, a top African artist who collaborated with Shakira on this year’s World Cup song
• The global phenomenon BTS
• Coldplay, who recently featured a backup choir during their Tiny Desk performance
• The Muppets, Kermit and Miss Piggy
• Conductor Gustavo Dudamel with musicians from the New York Philharmonic and the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra
• Ghetto Kids, a viral dance group from Kampala, Uganda
• Emmanuel Kelly, Iraq-born Australian singer
• PS22 Chorus from Staten Island

Fans can expect arm-in-arm singalongs and Grammy Awards-style mashups as part of the spectacle.

FIFA’s press materials emphasize that the show supports the charity arm, the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund. This initiative aims to raise $100 million to expand education and soccer access for children globally. $1 from every ticket sold went towards this cause. Tickets for the final originally cost nearly $3,000, showing how prices have surged.

Soccer remains the most popular sport globally, with over 240 million registered players and billions of fans, according to the Library of Congress. The 2026 World Cup has broken records for viewership. Before the quarter-final matches, FIFA already recorded 20 billion video views worldwide across all digital platforms. In comparison, the last Super Bowl drew 125.6 million viewers.

Soccer is also gaining popularity in the U.S., where a study by The Economist found it ranks as the third favorite sport. This change displaced baseball from the top three. FIFA may have adopted a strategy from the NFL, offering an engaging halftime diversion to keep audiences invested, even those less interested in soccer.