The World Cup just got a halftime show. Madonna, Shakira, BTS, Coldplay’s Chris Martin curating the whole thing — like it’s the Super Bowl now. And honestly? That’s kind of the perfect entry point into this episode. We commercialize everything we love — Christmas, Eid, now apparently the one sport that was never supposed to need a marketing department — and it’s worth asking what we lose every time we do that. But underneath the glitz, this World Cup is also happening in a pretty fractured world: a Somali referee turned away at the border, fans nervous about ICE outside the stadium, a tournament selling itself as “the world coming together” while a lot of the world quietly isn’t invited. Two different stories, same event, and I think they’re more connected than they look. Let’s get into it.