World Cup TV rights holders are growing frustrated with Fifa’s failure to say how long the half-time show at next month’s World Cup final will last at MetLife Stadium. The uncertainty has left commercial broadcasters trying to plan advertising around a break that could run well beyond the usual interval.
Chris Martin is set to curate the first half-time spectacle at a World Cup final, with Madonna, Shakira and the K-pop boyband BTS booked to perform. Martin already made a surprise appearance at last year’s Club World Cup final at the same venue, when the break in play lasted 24 minutes, and that figure is now shaping the worry among broadcasters who need to know how much inventory they can sell.
Several rights holder sources said multiple requests to Fifa for clarity had gone unanswered. One source said they were planning for the musical production to last between 12 and 15 minutes, but others are bracing for something more ambitious, with a half-time interval that could stretch to 25 to 30 minutes if the show follows the scale of Fifa’s wider pre-match programme.
That programme has already grown sharply for this World Cup, in a nod to expectations in the American market. Fifa has lined up opening ceremonies for the first games in each host country, while Shakira and Burna Boy will headline a pre-match show before Mexico meet South Africa in the Azteca Stadium on Thursday. Alanis Morissette and Michael Bublé will perform before Canada meet Bosnia and Herzegovina in Toronto on Friday, and Katy Perry, Lisa, Rema, Anitta and Future are set for the game between the US and Paraguay later on Friday in Los Angeles.
The problem is that the game’s laws still give players a half-time interval not exceeding 15 minutes unless the referee agrees to more time. Fifa has declined to confirm how long the break in the final will actually be, leaving rights holders to guess whether the show will be squeezed into football’s normal rhythm or allowed to push beyond it. For broadcasters with advertising slots to sell, that difference is not a detail; it is the schedule.
The unanswered question now is whether Fifa will set the final up as a normal football interval with a show squeezed into it, or whether it will ask the referee for permission to stretch the break and make the first World Cup final half-time spectacle a much longer television event than rights holders have planned for.
