U2 will celebrate 50 years together with a major global sporting appearance in Los Angeles next month, headlining the halftime show at the NFL’s first Thanksgiving Eve game, broadcast live on Netflix.
The band will perform at SoFi Stadium on Wednesday, November 25, during the Green Bay Packers’ clash with the Los Angeles Rams.
Kick-off is scheduled for 8 pm Eastern Time, or 1 am on Thursday morning in Ireland, with the halftime performance likely to take place shortly after 2.30 am Irish time.
It will bring together one of Ireland’s biggest cultural exports with one of the most powerful sporting and media properties in the United States, and will form part of U2’s celebration of 50 years since the band came together in Dublin in 1976.
SoFi Stadium, referred to as the 2028 Stadium under Olympic naming conventions, will be one of the principal venues for the Los Angeles Olympic Games less than two years later.
It will co-host the Olympic Opening Ceremony on July 14, 2028, alongside the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, then transform to host Olympic swimming. LA28 says the temporary configuration will make it the largest swimming venue in Olympic history.
Swimming will take place during the second week of the Games, beginning at the stadium on July 22, after the venue hosts the Opening Ceremony.
That makes November’s performance another chapter in a remarkable run of global events for the Inglewood venue, home to both the Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers. It has already staged Super Bowl LVI and hosted matches during the 2026 FIFA World Cup. It will also host Super Bowl LXI in 2027 before becoming an Olympic venue.
U2’s appearance comes almost 25 years after their performance at Super Bowl XXXVI in February 2002, when the band’s halftime set became closely associated with America’s response to the September 11 attacks.
This time the potential audience will be markedly different, with Netflix distributing the game internationally rather than through a conventional US television network.
Netflix has increasingly used major entertainment performances as part of its move into live NFL broadcasting. Beyoncé performed during its inaugural Christmas Gameday coverage in 2024, while Snoop Dogg fronted its Christmas halftime entertainment in 2025.
“There’s a reason U2 has headlined stadiums for decades: they don’t just perform, they deliver iconic moments audiences remember forever,” said Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos in announcing the performance.
“We’re thrilled that they’ll bring that same magic to the NFL stage on Netflix.”
The Thanksgiving Eve game forms part of an expanded NFL schedule for Netflix in 2026.
The streaming platform began its season with the first NFL regular-season game played in Australia and will follow the Packers against the Rams with a Christmas Day double-header featuring Green Bay against Chicago and Buffalo against Denver.
Netflix says its NFL coverage will be available in more than 200 countries.
Sport for Business Perspective
This announcement has several interesting strands from an Irish sport and business perspective.
At its simplest, one of Ireland’s most globally recognised brands is at the centre of one of America’s biggest sporting television occasions, with the timing of U2’s 50th anniversary giving Netflix a clear global story around the performance.
It also demonstrates how quickly the definition of a major sports broadcaster continues to change.
Netflix has moved beyond buying sport as an addition to an entertainment platform and is increasingly building its own appointment-to-view sporting occasions, with music, celebrity and production sitting alongside the game itself.
Thanksgiving Eve is effectively becoming another NFL broadcast property, much like Christmas Day has in recent seasons.
It also shows how modern stadiums are increasingly viewed not simply as homes for teams, but as year-round platforms for sport, entertainment, tourism, broadcast, and major-event economics.
And in the middle of it, next month, four musicians who first came together in Dublin in 1976 will be there, before likely returning to Dublin’s own mega stadium, Croke Park, in 2027.
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Image Credit: SoFi Stadium
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