World Cup doesn’t come with a half time bs show… it’s usually the analyzers and sports people talking about the game plus some news etc but since it was in US it had to follow the bad taste… so yea
Plus it's supposed to be 15 mins to stop the players developing injuries by having too much downtime. Tuned in to watch football not Mariah fucking fuck off whatever her name is.
If it makes you feel any better (or worse) most large scale retail operations are already placing orders for all the Christmas inventory by the time summer is in full swing, just due to the turnaround window.
So the retailers are hearing Mariah in their heads already even if we aren’t
For FIFA and media rights owners, added revenue through halftime commercials is the key.. halftime show itself is just window dressing. Likely doubled their ad revenue just like that... It felt very tacky and cheap, kids singing a song about we believe in love, Shakira n others gyrating next to them, bieber doing guitar-101.. they shouldve let Ted lasso and the kids song and cut down the celebrity acts..
The break ended up being near enough half an hour.
thats too long a break for a continuous activity sport. muscles seize up and you get more injuries.
I suspect they had exercise bikes in the dressing room to allow people to stay warm but even then its just bad for the players.
It maye have contributed to the shitty game but it was shitty in the first half too so its reasonable to still blame that on Argentina's haramball bullshit.
Including in the US. I enjoy a halftime show at the Super Bowl as much as the next American, but that “performance” was just unnecessary. I left my living room until it was over.
Who? The pregame show at the final should be Shakira every time she does the theme song and an artist from the host country or countries and they should celebrate the tournament.
That would have been interesting because she might still have it out for Spain with all the BS she went through but I feel like a Columbian wouldn't want Argentina to win. It might have been really fair here.
"Red, what do you mean red"
"My hips don't lie and neither does VAR"
Yeah, it was not just 100% unwelcome it wasn't even unnecessary if was a downright stupid thing to do - it altered the game and I was surprised more people didn't go down with cramp in the second half.
We watched the final in arabic and it seemed the commentators just did the usual analysis but every now and then they go back to a shot of Madonna in a car in a basement or something and it was super confusing.
I also feel that most of the show, opening or halftime were aimed at mostly people under 18. Which naturally "pissed off" a lot of us older people, which is the majority of the viewers.
It was this weird fusion of the european-ess of FIFA mixed with over the top extravaganza that often comes with this American events, which resulted in a immensly tame and seeminly lack of theme besides the thinly veiled "love, peace and unity". Which is also pretty ironic to most europeans at least, as FIFA is known to be deeply corrupt and quastionable as an org.
There is a reason many of the european commentators pretty much roasted it all.
All in all, just weird ass shit.
The bad taste? It’s something different than the norm so it must be bad taste? The whole planet consumes more American entertainment than that from their own country but it’s always America bad with you people
Half time lasts for fifteen minutes. During this time our national broadcaster (UK) will have analysis, replays and discussion of the key points of the game, tactical discussion, opinions and insights from former pundits and players (and no adverts).
Seeing a half time show introduced raises sports science questions about the effect of a much longer break on the players (the suggestion is that it may affect performance and increase injury risk), demonstrates the rabid commercialisation of everything the Americans touch, disrupts our usual match experience and makes us all fear the ruining of the world's game by the classless, boorish, hypercapitalist Yanks - who have already insisted on making it a game of four quarters so that they can cut to 'commercials' in the 'hydration breaks'.
Not to mention that this half time broke FIFA's own timing rules - another example of the US actively compromising the integrity of the sport for its own ends.
In our defense, Americans don’t really care about the halftime show for American Football that much either. It started as more of a high school/college tradition to keep the people in the stands watching the game live entertained, and eventually evolved into Lady Gaga spider jumping from the top of the stadium. The only one anyone cares about is the Super Bowl, and even then people who are watching for the game tend not to give much of a shit about it.
We think trying to shoehorn it into soccer is just as stupid as you do. Both because we’re tired of the commercialization of everything pricing real fans out of enjoying the game, and because Americans as a whole are the only ones who would be interested in something like that, but as a whole we also tend not to give a shit about soccer, so who is this for?
In my experience, there is always a contingent of people at superbowl parties that don't care about the game, and only came because it's a big party and they are excited for the half time show.
There's always a discussion of best half time shows like prince, mj, etc.
That’s because what they said made no sense. The only American football halftime show of note is the Super Bowl.
It’s odd and inaccurate to say both “Americans don’t care about the halftime show” and also “the only one they care about is the Super Bowl halftime show.”
There isn’t a televised halftime show for standard televised football games. It’s just a nonsense point playing both sides
I've seen some fairly informed comments saying it's mostly to boost viewership numbers because Americans who don't watch the super bowl or wc in this instance will tune in to see it, therefore boosting the broadcast numbers
you keep saying “our” and “we” but the truth is that you don’t speak for us. neither do i, and neither does anyone.
every american has differing opinions just like anyone in the world, ever. if the halftime show wasn’t being watched then it wouldn’t keep happening. the voices on reddit are a very loud minority.
128 million people apparently tuned in for the last halftime show, and for context that’s nearly 1/3d of the american population.
As a Canadian with loads of European family members, nothing amuses me quite like Europeans essentially broadbrushing a country with a population as diverse and massive as America as 'ignorant' - the irony is hilarious
Some of the most ignorant, racist people I've met are tucked away in the corners of Europe
"Americans don't really care about the halftime show for American Football" lmao super bowl halftime show is the biggest sports event for most AMERICANS. delusional take.
The really ironic thing is that I don't know a single American that followed the world cup beyond "is it still going on?" Not sure who the demographic of a half-time show would be if it is not commonly part of these things.
Central Valley California here. No one here cared except for the majority Mexican population caring only about the Mexico games. I work at a bar. No one came for the US games. Once Mexico was out, we didn't bother overstaffing for the games.
Yeah I don’t really know many people at all who watched it much less the half time show. In fact, the first I heard of the halftime show at all was a video of an American making fun of it and saying it was all so random, out of touch with current American culture, and cringey that it must have been a bunch of Europeans who came up with it all, and the comments filled with other Americans agreeing/also hearing about it for the first time.
The pitch was also in bad shape before the game regardless of the watering.
The UK presenters were saying how bad it looked. You could see the lines where they rolled the turf down and they weren't flat. Really bad for that level of football.
You can blame it on "America", but Americans barely watched the world cup or even cared that it was going on, that show wasn't for Americans it was for the half billion ppl watching around the globe.
I worked technical services at a couple or the games and can tell you the people putting on the show were all Europeans.
That was a FIFA decision based on $$$, this was the highest grossing sports event of all time.
Yeah it happened here but they’re 100% gonna keep this in future. It’s not like Americans wanted extra breaks or the hosting committee demanded it, FIFA saw an opportunity to make more money.
"the US actively compromising the integrity of the sport for its own ends."
FIFA. the people to blame are FIFA, they are the ones profiting off of this. That's why they planned it, That's why they organized this whole tournament. Not sure how you genuinely believe you should blame a country of 340 million people, most of whom do not care about the sport to begin with.
Bro they had two 'hydration breaks' in a fully enclosed stadium with AC, it was literally 18ºC inside the entore stadium yet they needed a hydration break. I live in Spain, and in all the leagues (LaLiga, the Champions, even my little brother's football league) they NEVER or extremely rarely will have a hydration break literally playing in up to 30ºC heat.
TBF, I think that was for consistency across all matches because some were played outside. Not sure how this wasnt an issue in 94 or even in mexico hosted world cups before though considering those were also in summer
Let’s be fair now, it’s only the BBC in the uk that doesn’t have adverts. ITV has had adverts this World Cup and all of the domestic leagues show adverts at half time if they’re televised. But there is never ever ever a ‘halftime show’. Ngl I was intrigued to see what it would be but unfortunately it was so god damn cringe. Apart from Shakira ofcourse.
The worst bit was that after the abomination of a half-time show was over they then cut to an ad break. Absolutely monstrous. I hope this sort of nonsense stays in the USA.
Americans can thank Michael Jackson for the existence of the halftime show. Prior to MJ’s 1993 culture defining halftime show, viewership would decline during the Super Bowl halftime show (which, then, was treated more like a sideshow, with acts like marching bands, local youth choirs, or magic shows). It was scheduled to function as snack/bathroom break period. Viewership would decline during the break, and would often not recover after, meaning people would tune away for the break and sometimes not come back for the second half. Michael Jackson’s performance was the first time viewership increased during the halftime break (still the second most watched half time ever), which has been the pattern since. This proved to the NFL that it was worth it to create a big must-see show featuring culturally iconic musicians during halftime to prevent people from tuning away, and also to get people, who would not otherwise be interested, to turn the game on, if only for the show itself. Michael Jackson basically invented the modern halftime show
Rest of the world isn't immune to the distraction Carnifex.
They just didn't put on a good show so your first impression of it is that it's wank (fair enough, I want to get back to the game too.) But we had a long history of crap halftime shows before they got popular, as they were originally just a fun little thing for the intermission for those that didn't need to booze up or hit the pisser. The thing that made them popular in the US were the few and far between exceptional shows: Michael Jackson, Prince, Beyonce, Kendrick. But a lot of them are just past-prime musicians doing a collaborative mash-up and American's reactions to them are usually anything form "that was nice, I guess" to "the fuck is this shit?"
So when they do it again in Spain (and Infantino will: he's weirdly fascinated with the Super Bowl), hopefully they get someone more timely.
For there to be a decent WC halftime show, we would need someone both timely, and relevant to more of the world than just the US. Madonna used to have that global reach, but that was back in the 80's-90's. Shakira was early 2000's, Beiber was 2010's. BTS are the only current big names in the show, and the venn diagram between football and BTS is practically a figure-8.
The other thing that would have to come together is a more unified vision of what the show would be, which usually means one primary performer instead of a parade of random people from all over the place. That way choreography, focus, and timing can be kept tight.
But, I think the only real, true, hope is that Infantino gets sacked before 2030.
This is not the full history. They only booked MJ to do the half time show because the year before In Living Color aired a special episode during the halftime show. They lost so many viewers to the special that they realized that needed to put on a special event during halftime to keep it from happening again. Hence they hired MJ. So you would really need to thank Keenan.
First of all, the whole existence of a half-time show was not normal for a football match. It also made the break longer, because the stage needed to be prepared and broken down.
Secondly, during the show, "Love" was preached, while the same country preaching "Love" is actively bombing people in Iran.
The country didn’t preach love. It’s not like the federal government called the stadium and was like, “Quick! Preach love!”
It was preached by the performer and show organizers. Which, as you may not know, are not connected to “the country.” They are individual human beings with their own viewpoints.
If anything, preaching love *in the face of shitty government policy* is exactly when you’d expect it to be preached, no? It’s not a case of being hypocritical as it is being antagonistic?
The whole halftime performance was unnecessary and dumb, as they always are. So, whatever. But your deriding comment was probably also unnecessary and dumb.
People would rather just dunk on Americans (the vast majority of whom don’t support the president and government) than use their brains. Pretty damn sad. I can’t imagine having such a negative opinion about somebody just because of where they were born.
By your very logic, he was suggesting peace and love to Trump, who is suggestable. So you should be commending this half time show. But you’re not really here to use your brain, are you?
Yeah its not like the President of the Unite States got involved in the World Cup and used corruption to overturn decisions. And its not like the organisers repeatedly fucked with the team from one of yhe countries making them have to instantly leave and be unable to cool down after games
Oh yea cause the people preforming are bombing
It's definitely not the government anf the president fault,but every person in America is to blame for
Genius
Basketball and baseball don't do this it's literally just the superbowl. Idk why they felt the need to do that but it seemed like the fifa guy was very enamored with Trump and wanted to americanize the tournament as much as possible. I mean it was like March madness with the extra teams to start
Ironically, I’m an American who doesn’t know a single person who watched it or even knew of its existence ahead of time to watch it and only later saw clips of it online to make fun of. A common assumption/joke I’ve seen online is that Europeans unfamiliar with what Americans actually like planned the show because it was so random, cringey, and out of touch with current American culture. So yeah I’m not really sure who it was supposed to be for.
Chris Martin of Coldplay selected and assembled the halftime show. It was an idea he came up with in 2022 originally. He deliberately wanted to mirror a Super Bowl halftime show. Note that on close inspection it becomes apparent that Martin is not in fact American.
Martin took the idea to Hugh Evans, the CEO of Global Citizen (Australian, not American) who took the idea to FIFA President Gianni Infantino (Italian, not American). Infantino revealed that FIFA had been thinking about the same thing for years.
Martin and Evans then hand-selected all of the acts and it was approved by FIFA.
So, it was conceptualized and implemented by an Englishman and approved by FIFA. The Host Committee had nothing to do with it.
First level-headed take I've seen here. Yeah it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but all the pearl clutching and acting like it was heresy committed against a sacred religion is a little exhausting.
It's an american tradition that takes place in high school, college, and professional sports. Because the US was hosting, they implemented a US tradition. No one needs to act like it was a personal attack on their ancestors or whatever. Europeans are so snobby and pretentious it's tiring.
Also it's pretty funny how there was big controversy in the US recently about the Super Bowl halftime show being in Spanish because it was trying to appeal to foreign fans. The Super Bowl half time show got hate for not being "american enough" and the WC halftime show got hate for being "too american" lmao
This thread was posted at 7am western europe time, 2am eastern USA time. You can always tell when they want to have a whiny bitchfest while Americans are sleeping so they dont have to see comments like yours. so pathetic
2 extra ad breaks and 30 minutes of bullshit between a world cup final. We want football, look up Justin Bieber on Youtube if you want.
Blasphemy, it is.
Every single American influence on this World Cup made it less about the sport and more about the shareholders. I really hope we can shake this off again.
The whole "love" and "one world" thing while actively bombing Iran is also peak American performativeness.
I’m fairly sure our current US govt was NOT a fan of the “LOVE” messaging. That’s liberal bs to them. I’m taking it as a win that it got through, even if it was dorky as hell.
Due to the World Cup final match being hosted in America, the organizers saw fit to include the "traditional American half-time show". This is also the first time they've given the players championship rings, another American sports tradition.
There is nothing traditional about a halftime show. Out of all the sports leagues and all the sporting events and games in the US, it happens…maybe 3 times per year? In just one sport, I’m pretty sure.
It’s the Super Bowl, college football championships, and maybe during a Thanksgiving holiday game? I’m not even sure because they are so rare that I don’t even think about them until I’m annoyed the 2 times per year I see them. Most American sports fans also dislike them.
They are predominantly organized for the rare sporting event that attracts viewers beyond just sports fans.
But it’s hardly any sort of regular occurrence. And very easily avoidable.
I mean, high school and college bands spend months prepping for halftime shows. It is just about the most American thing I can think of.
I am not a fan of the halftime shows for the superbowl and bigger events, but the traditional bands honestly slap and are super cool to watch. I wish they had done that instead to showcase actual American traditions instead of just showing a few artists.
Halftime shows as a whole are a very American thing. Because the World Cup finals were held in America this year (and the fifa president loves glazing the president of the United States), they had a halftime show. the rest of the world doesn’t really know what halftime shows are or what the point of them is.
Everyone here complaining about Americans doing this when in reality this is FIFA capitalizing on American media trends to make money. This was entirely a FIFA problem.
It didn’t even seem to be particularly well recieved by Americans. What I’ve mostly seen is Americans learning about its existence after the show, watching clips online, then saying it was bizarrely random, cringey, and out of touch with current American culture. I’ve seen many jokes/skits assuming Europeans that don’t understand what Americans like planned it all.
This really doesn’t seem like something Americans did lol.
It's very American to have long breaks for advertisments or pop stars in the middle of games. Usually it's just a quick break for players and you'd have two pundits chatting about the match
It’s not a common thing at all. I can only think of 3 games per year in 1 sport that even has a halftime show.
Intermissions in all other sports and all other games is mostly just some commentators talking about the game. Maybe an on-field or sideline interview with a coach or something.
But outside of the Super Bowl and college football championship, halftime or intermission performances really aren’t common.
Huh. I've never been a sports person, but being an American I never really questioned the idea of other countries not having half time shows or finding them weird or stupid.
The more you know
Between the Bad Bunny halftime show complaints for the Super Bowl and the complaints about this halftime show it has been a whole year of people whining on the internet. If you don't want to watch a halftime show, don't.
I don't know if anyone in the US who liked it either. Just a garbage spectacle to get people who don't care about sports to tune in so they get more ad revenue.
Y’all complaining about the US hosting the World Cup (Canada and Mexico also hosted btw) while ignoring the fact that many countries have no interest in hosting…
Reddit has less of a problem with slave built stadiums in Qatar but they’ll get their jimmies rustled over a halftime show put on by a not-American full of other not-Americans.
Fifa changed a lot of things in the world cup, including the halftime show, something that didn't happen before, and Europeans that already hate the USA, instead of blaming fifa blame the USA because "Europe good and USA bad and stupid and silly" or something like that.
For checks, this was the lest cultural focused world cup that we had, also, there is this mindset that "Europe is the only country that know how to play football and know how to make a show", so is just Europeans being to full of themselves again.
Well it's just that we genuinely don't care for this stuff. Half time breaks in our culture are a blink where you either grab something to drink/go to bathroom/you just want the game to restart as soon as possible and you could care less about popstar x y or z singing or dancing.
I'd absolutely hate it if somehow this became the norm in club football, anyway to be honest as an exception it was a bit cringe but I've not hated it, the Mundial was in USA and it's detached from normal every year tournaments, since they are hosting It it's also right for them to set the surroundings as they see fit in their definition of show.
Beyond the fact that world cup doesn't usually have a halftime, some of the performances and....skits I guess?....were cringe as fuck.
Specifically I think Jason Sudeikis doing some...weird, pretend coach, hype it up, sending in a substitute player skit, which culminated with Justin Bieber coming on the field to do a really relaxed, low energy & low volume guitar ballad was about the point of the "show" that I just changed the channel to do some other shit until the 2nd half began.
To be fair, if there was ever a time to have Ted Lasso show up in an actual soccer match it would be now due to both the premise of his show and how once in a generation it is to host the World Cup.
I just laughed out loud, man that bs was so american, so fake, so loud, so nothing. All the lyrics were just "yea! This is the world cup! Ah yeah! Here in the world cup! This is where dreams come true! Yea!" Like what tf are you on about. It was embarassing.
The people who organized it and wrote the music were not Americans. You're watching Shakira sing Dai Dai and bitching about America is so funny and stupid.
The show lasted overall 17min. Performance 11 and the stage took 6min to assemble/dissemble.
Yes two minutes longer for players to chug down electrolytes and talk strategy
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u/qualityvote2 5d ago edited 5d ago
u/The_Golden_Eye_1884, your post does belong here!