JetBlue and United announce new partnership
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I'm David Brancaccio in New York. It's not a merger, but JetBlue and United Airlines are teaming up. The airlines announced a partnership yesterday to sell each other's flights and link up their loyalty programs and more. Daniel Ackerman reports on what the airlines and flyers might get out of this.

For years, JetBlue has been searching for the one, an airline to partner with, says Richard Abelafia of Aerodynamic Advisory. They've been trying to grow. They need to be bigger than they are. JetBlue tried to merge with Spirit Airlines. Just to get the capacity and the routes. But a court blocked that merger over antitrust concerns. JetBlue also tried to partner with American Airlines, says Meghna Maharishi of the travel intelligence firm Skift.

Both of those airlines were coordinating their schedules or coordinating their pricing out of the New York and Boston areas. A court put a stop to that too. Because it was seen as anti-competitive and essentially almost like a merger, but without going through the actual approvals process of a merger. Maharishi says the new pairing between JetBlue and United is more likely to withstand antitrust scrutiny because this relationship doesn't run very deep. They're not coordinating schedules, they're not coordinating pricing. It's really mostly just loyalty benefits and

United gets something out of it too, including access to JetBlue's network in the Caribbean and another New York airport. They get an entry into JFK, which is something that they have long wanted. Right now, United accounts for about 70% of all flights out of Newark, an airport where air traffic controllers briefly lost flights from their radar screens. Starting in 2027, United will take over some JetBlue slots at JFK.

As for what the partnership means for customers... The people who are going to benefit from this are the freaking flyers. Dan Bubb is a commercial pilot turned airline researcher at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. And he says people with miles and status on one airline will be able to use all of that for the other. But I don't know that it's going to really help the average flyer who occasionally flies that much. Bubb says the partnership could be the first step toward an attempted merger.

We know the nature of the airline industry. You know, ever since deregulation in 1978, lots of airlines emerged. But, he says, that would invite a whole new round of antitrust review. I'm Daniel Ackerman for Marketplace.

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The sport's European boss is investing big money in pre-match entertainment and plans for a halftime show at the next World Cup. People organizing the gigs concede what the NFL does remains the gold standard. And is it something the fans even want? The BBC's Will Chalk reports from Britain.

I've become so numb I can't feel you

Grammy award-winning rock band Linkin Park. The game itself usually reaches a global audience of close to 450 million people, with the winning team earning more than $100 million in prize money. It's such a big deal in soccer that despite the fact there's no British teams taking part this year, here in the UK, pubs and bars are still expected to be packed out. Yeah, ask soccer fans in central London if they're excited for the kickoff show.

I didn't even know there was a kick-off show. No, I didn't notice that. Have you heard of a kick-off show? Is it on TV? I don't really watch it, I just watch the actual game. This will be the ninth year this kick-off show has happened. In a 2024 interview, one of the organisers, Live Nation, admitted the Super Bowl halftime show remains the gold standard when it comes to mixing sports and music. So why is this? Paul Mueller is a sports business journalist based in Florida...

What it really comes down to is the fact that in the U.S., the fans are like we're consumers, right? They're constantly peddling stuff to us. We're constantly being sold. In European football, the atmosphere is created by the fans. It's by the chants and the singing and the kind of camaraderie.

This is something non-American soccer fans will get a taste of first-hand next year when the US, Canada and Mexico are hosting soccer's most iconic tournament, the World Cup. Back in London, I met soccer fan Archie. He's OK with pre-match entertainment and it's the one fan I met who already knew about this Linkin Park show. But even he thinks plans for a halftime show are an Americanisation. If a game's on and it's halftime and you're a bit nervous at the game and suddenly someone else is coming out performing, it sort of...

It almost takes away from the moment. But soccer journalist Ed McCambridge, who's based in Berlin, thinks it's something fans are just going to have to get used to, given the ownership of teams in England's top soccer league. Last season in the Premier League, 10...

of the clubs were majority owned by Americans. That includes some of the biggest teams in the Premier League, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United. The days of like a local businessman owning these football clubs and adhering and respecting the traditions of these clubs is long gone.

According to broadcaster Fox, more than 130 million people watched this year's Super Bowl halftime performance by Kendrick Lamar in the US, compared to the average viewership of 128 million for the on-field face-off between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs.

And much like the Super Bowl, Ed says soccer bosses could see music as a way of reaching people who might not be tuning in for the sport. Expect, you know, in the next 10 years, the next 20 years, every Champions League final, every World Cup final, every European Championship final will have a proper halftime showdown.

with a big performer from America or elsewhere, that would probably get more views and more clicks than the highlights of the actual game. A prediction some soccer fans might find bleak, but if clicks and views equal money, it's hard to see the sport turning them down. I'm the BBC's Will Chalk for Marketplace. And in New York, I'm David Brancaccio. You're listening to the Marketplace Morning Report from APM, American Public Media. Hi, I'm Katie Drummond.

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