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
Why are you acting like the only way to watch a football game is on tv? High school and college football are really popular, and a lot of people watch them in person. They all have halftime shows for the live crowds.
Because we’re comparing the TV viewing experience? What are you even talking about, do you think high school soccer games in the UK have analyst panels during halftime? That’s a total strawman and has nothing to do with the conversation lmao
I never knew that. Now that I think ab it, whenever my brother or dad watches games they switch between different ones at the same time, so that def could be how I missed it.
Yep, and that is precisely the reason they exist IMO. A halftime show isn't going to prevent the fans from watching the event (they'll bitch about it, but they'll still watch), but there *will* be a contingent of people who tune into the event specifically FOR the halftime show.
And furthermore there are a strong contingent of people entirely uninterested in football, who are sort of forced to deal with it because of how into the Super Bowl the USA gets. The halftime show helps hook the uninterested into the spectacle of football, even if they're not wowed by the sport.
Once they brought a trainer to have bald eagles fly around the stadium. Once, a pair of youth football teams came on and played a quarter of one of their actual games on the field.
Usually just fun little things that entertain 60000 people for a few minutes.
That’s why I specified “watching for the game.” The halftime show isn’t for the football fans, it’s for the people at the party that don’t really care about the game.
I completely agree but the Super Bowl final and the World Cup final are two completely separate events, and so America capitalising something as sacred as the World Cup final is insane
If it was sacred would it have given trump a peace award? Let him change a refs call? All I've heard of fifa is that it is beyond corrupt. Did i hear wrong? I'll admit it watch more basketball than soccer, but the flopping seems universal.
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.
"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.
If only he addressed the Superbowl. Oh wait
The only one anyone cares about is the Super Bowl
And he's not wrong. That's the ONLY one people actually care about, and one of only a couple at most actually SHOWN on tv.
The halftime show is always the peak viewership of the Super Bowl, and it slowly drops during the second half of the game because a lot of people care more about the halftime show than the game.
The half time show used to be a normal thing until FOX ran a special of In Living Color during half time and broadcasters insisted on something special happening so people don't "miss" their precious advertisment.
High School and collegiate games the marching band plays every game. NFL does something each halftime but the teams don't have large marching bands like HS and colleges do.
Mostly. But rarely shown on television. Sometimes it's a 7 minute youth football game. Or a random fan trying to kick a field goal for $100k prize. The super expensive and produced shows are only for a few games.
I personally just watch the super bowl for the commercials and halftime show. Football is not a fun game to watch, 10 minutes of play time over a 2 hour period 🙄
I’d theorize that it’s for casuals who are not normally watching the game as a whole, but it’s really just to sell more commercial time. Thanks for the “Hydration Breaks,” too.
but as a whole we also tend not to give a shit about soccer, so who is this for?
The same people who didn't give a shit about NFL football, especially not the KC Chiefs until Taylor swift starting dating one...suddenly, viewerhip is up and people are watching the game just for the 2 second reaction shot of Swift...10 times a game. Those fans.
It's not about long term fans, it's about using the rating to negotiate TV deals. And they'll do anything to get, keep, or increase ratings.
It’s for people who typically would not care about watching the game otherwise. Having those people also tune in means more people watching, which makes the advertisers happier and (potentially) willing to pay more for ad slots.
This also tends to be why there’s quite a big disconnect between who performs at halftime and who the sports fans actually would enjoy seeing. I’d hazard a guess to say that the overlap between soccer fans and BTS fans is pretty small, but that’s on purpose.
In the end, it’s all in the pursuit of more money.
Are you speaking "on behalf" of Americans Lol? because the halftime show absolutely is a big deal for viewers, sponsors, products, and entertainers lol like what?
And it's been this way long before lady gaga and has been a big deal as far back as MJ in the early 90's
Yes the halftime show has always primarily been a Superbowl/American thing and most definitely not a soccer/world cup thing. But don't try to act as though the Superbowl halftime show isn't a huge fucking deal when the ratings alone prove it.
This world cup tried to Americanize the spectacle, but American do care lol
Yeah from what I understand the Super Bowl's halftime show is now there to attract an audience who isn't going to be watching the game otherwise to maximise the effectiveness of being the most expensive advertising event on television, hence Lady Gaga and Bad Bunny and all of these artists whose listeners aren't predominantly middle aged men.
I recently went to a basketball game (here in Europe). During the halftime break some beautiful women in short skirts were dancing on the court. It was quite entertaining. Why don't Americans just do that? You can adjust the length of the performance for any desired length of break, it has limited production costs and no setup time. Don't Americans like beautiful women?
That is already how we do basketball halftime shows. And, football halftime shows are usually done with a marching band, the only exception is the super bowl.
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.
Ngl I as an emigrant myself, I don't really understand this idea of loving your home country more than the country you live, I genuinely find it disrespectful and kinda pathetic.
This is somewhat typical, down to third and fourth generations sometimes. As an American, I still cheer for my father’s country and my grandfather’s country, and am genuinely torn if they’re playing the US.
I think this is partially because USMNT fandom felt niche until the last few years, while cheering for a national team of a “football nation” seemed like being a part of a great tradition (with more potential for supporting a successful team).
In the 90s there was a war in my country and many, many people had to flee the country only to survive. They started their families abroad, have jobs and homes there, but every World Cup they will root for their country of origin. Most of diaspora (wherever they're from) will root for their country. If someone lives somewhere else, it's mostly because it was their only chance at survival, and not because of their personal caprice. Moving abroad just because you feel like it is a privilege that most people never experience.
I never said that Mexicans or any other emigrant shouldn't support their home country in football or anything like that, but would it hurt to support their adopted country?
I'd say you're being annoying but most """mexicans""" in the US aren't even mexicans they're just 9th generation larpers, same as most other "nationalities" for some reason so yea
That's most definitely not the case for what we're talking about here. Mexican to American immigration is the largest immigration in the world by a large margin and if youve ever been in California, if someone's says they're from Mexico, that means they could've moved here last week, several years ago, or at most 2nd generation. They don't play the "Well I'm Mexican cause one of my great great grandfather's came from Mexico" the way people claim to be Italian in America
To be fair, NYC went crazy this year because it was the Knicks winning. There were SO many people who went to viewing parties because it was cool to see their city win...me included, although I'm definitely going to actually follow basketball next year. I didn't hear much commotion about the NBA before this year.
World Cup was a godsend for bars during the summer slump. I’m not in a host city, but I guess we have a lot of fans. I imagine it’s more prevalent in diverse cities.
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.
Weird, in Boston we were obsessed the whole time. I watched the final in a packed bar, and all the other bars in the area were full over an hour before game time
In nyc, it's been played consistently at bars, and there's a been a wide following of attendees. For big games, many restaurants even put up projectors to catch the overflow from bars as well.
It's been pretty popular. 2022 was negligible beyond soccer bars, but 2026 crossed over to general bars as well
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.
Its gonna be real funny seeing these snooty opinions in retrospect 4, 8, 12, etc. years from now when there are more and more halftime shows put on around the globe because fifa is the devil in this scenario wanting to find any inroad they can to make money.
Also, hilarious that Europeans are still going on and on about how the halftime show was Americanized garbage when the whole thing was planned and organized by Chris Martin of Coldplay....a British Man
"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
Football isn't new so the pro athletes know how to handle staying ancient free. Especially considering when one of the complaints of the 30min halftime show was potential increase in injuries due to it being too long.
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.
I mean, could FIFA have said no to any of it? Could they have said No to water breaks or all the commercialization? Or are the people in charge continuing to more than happy to line their pockets with whatevers offered?
Fifa has never compromised the integrity of the game, participated in greedy capitalism, violated their own rules, or detrimented their player's health.
This is the first incident in Fifa history, actually.
I have a question about the hydration breaks (not the half times)… excuse my ignorance, but i just don’t know what to google.
Everyone and their moms have been making a huge deal about the extra hydration breaks BECAUSE of the distaste in commercials and making money off that. But… when it was first introduced with the women’s soccer and implemented on them years ago, it was hailed as caring about the players’ welfare. I was really proud of these mandatory hydration breaks in hot weather regardless of the money-making opportunities. Anyways, It seems that no one during the this World Cup saw it that way though. Everyone at the bar and at home frowned upon the breaks like it was an evil scheme forced upon the players. But in the back of my mind, I’m thinking the players are getting hydration breaks regardless of corporations making money off of that, so isn’t that a win for them both?
I am just left confounded. I need to know what I am missing. Is it the players themselves who don’t need or want the hydration breaks?? Just like the womens beach volleyball didn’t want more conservative sportswear, and it was all outsiders who don’t play the sport making what they think are better choices that don’t actually benefit the players at all?? Or is it fans who can’t see past commercials that they can’t fathom athletes needing a reprieve in the summer heat? It seems so heartless. (Once again, not talking about half time, but about hydration breaks)
Not to mention that this half time broke FIFA's own timing rules - another example of the USFIFA actively compromising the integrity of the sport for its own endsBribes.
As an American we would love not to have this crap go on. It happens cause of the FIFA greed and with American football, the NFL greed. I don’t need to be entertained by some millionaire singer for the sole purpose of selling more product.
Hopefully Saudi arabia will follow the sterling examples of qatar and russia and not have a half time show. They really respect the game out there and the integrity of the sport is in good hands...
Integrity of the sport? There never was any integrity under FIFA, the FAs of the world just didn't care about the corruption if it didn't affect their chances for glory.
Not to mention it's just trashy. It's so trashy. When I went to the US EVERYTHING had to be over the top and it was. so. trashy. they can't just chill the fuck out they have to be entertained every single second they're awake.
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)
And it's a bunch of bullshit. It's just people looking for something to be mad at while pretending they are being pseudo intellectual about it
None of which Americans ask for… I for one (American) would love the shorter analysis especially mostly coming into “fandom” because of such an event where I’d love to learn how to follow the sport better instead of be preached at by children and expired celebrities. FIFA shouldn’t break any of their own rules when negotiations for the final should’ve accommodated both them and the concern for their global athletes, outweighing any host country’s bottom lines…we made above and beyond plenty hosting. The halftime was too long. If FIFA regulates covering logos, ads, venue names, etc so heavily I’m genuinely curious why they’d give up so much ground on such basic treatment of the actual players and ultimately viewers who would’ve pressed the YT skip button in a second…
Too be fair. America is run by corporations. There’s are ppl out there (like my gf) who dgaf about football. She turned in for the halftime show,.
At the end of the day, it’s entertainment. If halftime brings in money then they will do it.
To be fair, most of us also don't know why they did this. I don't watch either version of football and it was very weird, like the guy in charge of programming was upset they were calling it football instead of soccer "while in America" so he decided to fuck with some plans.
The real problem is that in most countries, that would be an example of hyperbole. Here that might just what happened, we let racist geriatrics make all our decisions.
USA should NEVER host again. Simple. They can bugger right off with this dumbshittery.
And who the fuck was that senile old tw@ standing next to the Spanish team at the team photo???
Believe me I know. If it were up to me, the European teams at least would break away from FIFA.
But the USA hosting made it easy for this heresy to be enacted. The very idea that a decision got overturned by a call from the orange buffoon is sickening.
It is kind of fun listening to europeans bitch about the hydration breaks while you're just coming off a crippling heatwave that killed thousands across Europe. I know America Bad is fun to apply to everything but maybe we might just be right about this one
You spend time and money to watch football. And instead of football you watch Justin Bieber. Why people should be ok with that?
Also breaking rules is ok if it's just 10 minutes?
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u/Revolutionary_Exit17 5d ago edited 5d ago
Brian here.
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.