The World is Watching: The PR Power of FIFA’s Halftime Show

What’s more important than the FIFA World Cup final?

This week, the 2026 FIFA World Cup Final marked a significant moment in sports history, beginning the tradition of a FIFA halftime show. Following on from the success of the NFL Super Bowl Halftime Show, with headliner Bad Bunny, the performance featured the world’s biggest artists and generated global attention. 

The halftime show demonstrates how strategic events can be used to build brand awareness, engage a new audience and create earned media on a global scale. 

One of the major objectives of the halftime show was to extend beyond FIFA’s football fanbase and re-position their brand as entertainment for all. By incorporating internationally recognised performers, including Justin Bieber, Madonna, BTS and Shakira, FIFA positioned the World Cup as more than just a sporting event; it was a global entertainment spectacle. 

Organisations evolve their image to appeal to broader and younger audiences. The extensive media coverage before, during and post-event significantly increased FIFA’s visibility across entertainment, lifestyle and news media, not limited to only sports publications. 

The halftime show also represents a high volume of earned media. Millions of viewers have shared clips, reactions and opinions on many social media platforms. This creates organic publicity that no advertising budget could replicate.

Every social media post and news article contributed to keeping FIFA a main priority for public conversation. For many PR professionals, this demonstrates the value of creating moments that audiences naturally want to share. 

Although this spectacular moment generated news, it also demonstrated the importance of expectation management. As this was the first FIFA halftime show, months of promotion and speculation created high expectations for the performance. With this quick viral moment, like any other high-profile event, the public opinion was quite mixed. 

Organisations, such as FIFA, cannot control public opinion, but they can prepare communication strategies that respond to feedback and reinforce key messages after the event. Many public conversations on social media are saying that FIFA did ‘too much’ in too little time. We are yet to determine FIFA’s response to this, or we may just have to wait to see an improvement at the 2030 FIFA World Cup Halftime Show.

The FIFA World Cup halftime show demonstrates that modern public relations is about creating cultural moments rather than simply promoting products or events. Whether the audiences enjoyed the performance or not, FIFA successfully generated worldwide media attention and positioned the World Cup as an entertainment event, capable of following on and competing with other halftime shows. 

In today’s digital landscape, capturing public attention is one of the most valuable outcomes a PR campaign can achieve, making the halftime show a primary example of PR in action.

Written by Alyssa Attard, PR & Influencer Assistant @ InsideOut PR