Belgium's second half against Argentina on Tuesday was not a comeback so much as a hostile takeover, three goals in nineteen minutes that turned a wake into a party and left Lionel Scaloni staring at a lineup card like it had personally wronged him. Down 2-0 at the hour mark to a team many had already filed under "gallant exit," Belgium instead delivered the biggest turnaround of this World Cup, and the kind of forty-five minutes that makes broadcasters justify what they paid for the rights. FIFA's global media deal for this tournament runs into the billions, split across markets, and nights like Tuesday are the entire pitch: chaos with a clock on it, sold in advance to whoever wrote the biggest check.

The business underneath is duller than the football and worth noting anyway. A knockout run like this adds real value for the broadcaster holding the match, since advertisers pay a premium for a game people actually finish watching, not one they abandon at 2-0. Belgium's federation collects its own bonus too, FIFA's prize pool scales hard through the later rounds, and a golden-generation side that looked finished a year ago just bought itself, and its commercial partners, at least one more week of relevance. Belgium didn't just save a football match. It saved a rate card.