Madonna at the New York Giants v New England Patriots final

Madonna performs during the NFL Super Bowl XLVI halftime show on February 5, 2012, in Indianapolis, Indiana (Perry Knotts/Getty Images)

GLOBAL STAGE

Could Madonna, Shakira, and BTS make the FIFA World Cup final more like the Super Bowl?

Just because it’s the biggest soccer game in the world doesn’t mean it can’t feel like football to Americans.

Millie Giles

For many soccer fans around the world, particularly those of a certain age in Argentina, England, and maybe Naples, FIFA World Cup glory is synonymous with the late Diego Maradona, his left foot, and, on one divine occasion, his hand.

With the US as one of three North American hosts of the international competition this year, alongside Canada and Mexico, organizers are serving up a performance from one of the States’ own cultural deities: pop star Madonna, presenting just the latest instance where the soundalike icons might get mixed up.

Big break

On Thursday, FIFA announced in an Instagram post that the first-ever halftime show to take place during the World Cup final will feature performances from Madonna, K-pop group BTS, and Shakira, who’s also behind this year’s official song, following up her catchy theme from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

The stacked lineup, curated by Coldplay’s Chris Martin, is much more reminiscent of the Super Bowl halftime show than the traditional 15-minute break midway through a soccer game. With The Athletic reporting Wednesday that FIFA plans to use the entire field at the MetLife Stadium for the interval show, it’s likely to last about double that time.

Advertisers, to whom FIFA has already granted more slots during matches, will welcome an extended, star-studded break during the world’s most watched sporting event — though, if it’s anything like the Super Bowl, commercials might be eye-wateringly expensive. For US citizens at least, the biggest football game on Earth more closely resembling the biggest American football game on Earth might not be so bad.

In the US, searches on YouTube for “super bowl” have consistently surpassed those for “world cup.” In terms of global searches, however, the term “world cup” generates up to 4x more interest than the American championship does on the platform when the quadrennial tournament takes place. (Note: the highest global peaks for this search align with the men’s soccer world cup, rather than various other world cup competitions.)

Audience figures tell a similar story: the final of the 2022 Qatar World Cup garnered an average global live viewership of 571 million, per FIFA, but just 25.8 million in the US. Meanwhile, this year’s Super Bowl averaged 125.6 million viewers in the US, per Nielsen estimates. Though global TV figures weren’t given for Super Bowl LX, the NFL cited 62.5 million international viewers for Super Bowl LVIII in 2024 — about one-tenth the worldwide audience, excluding the US, that tuned in for the Qatar final.

Max Knoblauch22h

Netflix is staffing up an apparent AI animation studio called INKubator

According to several public job listings, streaming giant Netflix appears to be building a GenAI animation studio called INKubator.

First reported by journalist Janko Roettgers in the Lowpass newsletter, INKubator seems to have launched in March and aims to “develop feature-quality content in a creator-led environment.”

As Lowpass reports, INKubator appears focused on AI-generated short-form animation, but listings imply ambitions toward longer-form content. Netflix didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

INKubator wouldn’t be Netflix’s first foray into AI. Back in March, it acquired Ben Affleck’s AI filmmaking startup InterPositive — which trains on individual films’ already-shot footage — for as much as $600 million depending on certain targets.

Netflix’s potential future AI-generated animations could be served to an increasingly ad-packed streaming service. At Netflix’s Upfront presentation on Wednesday, the company said its ad-supported tier has now reached 250 million subscribers globally, up 31% from November.

Netflix is building an AI animation studio

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Netflix confirms a “KPop Demon Hunters” world concert tour is on the way

Netflix has a “Golden” mine and it's digging deeper.

At its fourth annual TV Upfront presentation on Wednesday, Netflix President of Advertising Amy Reinhard announced a partnership with AEG Presents to create a “KPop Demon Hunters” world tour that will bring the phenomenon to life.

In March, Bloomberg previously reported Netflix was planning a global world tour sometime next year ahead of the sequel in arenas that would hold 10,000 to 20,000 fans, though the news had not been confirmed by the company nor had a partner been in place at the time.

“KPop Demon Hunters” is Netflix’s most watched film of all time, racking up 481.6 million views globally during the second half of 2025. Since its release, the HUNTR/X trio of Ejae, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami has appeared and performed at several major events including late-night talk shows, award ceremonies, and most recently at Coachella, where they were a surprise guest for Katseye. It hasn’t been confirmed whether the trio will be on the tour.

The announcement of the tour comes after Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos shared in a recent blog post that the company spent $135 billion on licensing and original film and TV over the last 10 years.

This year, Netflix has a projected content spend of $20 billion, up 10% year over year, while its annual revenue forecast is between $50.7 billion and $51.7 billion. The streaming giant has brought in more than $46 billion in profit over the past decade.

Netflix said more details around cities and tickets for the concert tour are expected to come out later this year.

Millie Giles

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$135B 🎥

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Netflix on Tuesday announced that it has spent more than $135 billion on licensing and original film and TV over the past decade.

“While other entertainment companies pull back, we’re leaning in — spending tens of billions of dollars on content every year, investing in production facilities from Spain to New Jersey,” co-CEO Ted Sarandos said in a blog post accompanying a new interactive site called “The Netflix Effect.”

According to Netflix, the company has contributed $325 billion to the global economy in that time, creating more than 425,000 jobs.

As Sherwood News has previously reported, Netflix continues to increase its content spend, but that investment has notably slowed in recent years when weighed against revenue, dropping from a content spend ratio of $0.72 per $1 of revenue in December 2019 to $0.40 per $1 in March. This year, the company has projected a content spend of $20 billion, up 10% year over year. The company’s annual revenue forecast is between $50.7 billion and $51.7 billion.

All that spending has paid off for Netflix, too: the streamer has pulled in more than $46 billion in profit over the past decade.

Could Madonna, Shakira, and BTS make the FIFA World Cup final more like the Super Bowl?

Big break

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