What you need to know about Sunday’s World Cup halftime show : NPR

The World Cup final, for the first time, is set to feature a halftime show that will bring together celebrities from six continents to honor the “beautiful game.” Scheduled to start around 3:45 PM ET, this show will be broadcast in the U.S. on Fox, Fox One, and Telemundo for Spanish speakers. It will also stream on the Fox Sports app and Peacock in Spanish, with an expected duration of approximately 11 minutes.

Curated by Coldplay’s Chris Martin, the lineup is packed with stars designed to appeal to a wide audience. Performers include Justin Bieber, Madonna (whose latest album just topped the Billboard 200), Shakira (referred to as the World Cup queen), and Burna Boy who collaborated with Shakira on this year’s World Cup anthem. Joining them are global icons BTS, Coldplay (known for their Tiny Desk performance with a backup choir), and beloved Muppets Kermit and Miss Piggy. The show will also feature conductor Gustavo Dudamel with musicians from the New York Philharmonic and the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, Uganda’s viral dance group Ghetto Kids, Iraq-born Australian singer Emmanuel Kelly, and the children from Staten Island’s PS22 Chorus. The challenge will be fitting all these acts into an 11-minute performance, likely involving collaborative singalongs and Grammy-style mashups.

FIFA’s promotional material highlights that the halftime show will benefit its charity initiative, the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund. The fund aims to raise $100 million to enhance educational and soccer opportunities for children worldwide. FIFA states it has already secured half of this target, including a $1 contribution from every ticket sold for the tournament. Given that ticket prices began at nearly $3,000 for the cheapest seat, this represents a small fraction of sales, with prices continuing to rise.

Soccer, already the world’s most popular sport, boasts over 240 million registered players globally, with fan engagement reaching billions, according to the Library of Congress. FIFA has been celebrating record viewership during the 2026 World Cup, with 20 billion video views reported across digital platforms before the quarter-finals, compared to the last Super Bowl’s 125.6 million viewers. Soccer’s popularity is growing in the U.S., where it now ranks as the third favorite sport, surpassing baseball, according to a survey published by The Economist.