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<\/p>\nWith the FIFA World Cup 2026 just a few months away,\u00a0Oscar Sanchez, head of host broadcast production, FIFA, and\u00a0Paul King,\u00a0HBS, senior producer, FIFA World Cup 2026, took to the Football Summit stage to share production plans with SVG\u2019s Ken Kerschbaumer last week<\/p>\n
The creation of 16 discrete production teams is one of the biggest changes for this year\u2019s tournament, helping to reduce the need for people to travel between the 16 venues across the USA, Canada and Mexico while also having a positive impact on budgets.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main difference here is that we need more crews, because we need to minimise the risk of people travelling across big countries like the US, Canada or Mexico,\u201d said Sanchez. \u201cWe\u2019ve been working with HBS for the last four or five years to identify the people that we are going to use and the best production model. It\u2019s not about just finding people, it\u2019s about the best production model to deliver a high-quality product and minimise risks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The teams will also have more of a global feel than previous tournaments. \u201cHistorically the teams have been very European focused because it\u2019s a super-high-level crew of professionals,\u201d\u201d he added. \u201cBut this time we wanted to open the options more to people who live, breathe and enjoy football, and know the story of football as well as they do in Europe. I mean, nobody can say that the country that is the World Cup champions like Argentina don\u2019t live and breathe football.\u201d<\/p>\n
The process of finding those directors is extensive to say the least, as Sanchez explained. \u201cWe do a follow up with all of the tentative candidates on a monthly basis. I\u2019m constantly getting information about what games they\u2019re directing so I can check on those games. We look at other tournaments to see how they perform and we get tapes of matches and look back at them. We do retrospective QC on some games to see how directors perform. The Club World Cup really gave us a chance to put some of those people in an actual situation of doing the matches. We used directors from Argentina, Mexico, the USA, Australia, and we saw how enthusiastic they were, how much they had a real passion and understanding of the game, and how much research the directors would do into teams and players that weren\u2019t particularly well known, and all of those things are really important.\u201d<\/p>\n
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In terms of the camera plan for the tournament, there\u2019s premium coverage for all 104 matches, with 45 cameras per match. This includes Polecams, cablecams and RefCams along with cine style and 360 cameras and digital-first devices.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we\u2019re looking at those camera plans now, we don\u2019t just put the broadcast cameras in, we put all of the ones that are going to be creating content, because content comes in so many different ways,\u201d said King.<\/p>\n
Things will be stepped up for the Round of 32 with additional Ultra Motion and super-slow motion cameras. Player cameras will also be reintroduced. \u201cThe group stage camera plan is pretty comprehensive to start with, so it\u2019s not like we need to add half the number of cameras on again,\u201d added King.<\/p>\n
Following a successful debut on last year\u2019s Club World Cup, RefCam will be used on every match during the tournament. However, it\u2019s not a host broadcast camera, as Sanchez was keen to clarify.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a camera that was developed by our football technology and innovation team, along with our refereeing team, and then throughout the process, they made it available for us to use as part of the host feed. It has specific guidelines. It is not part of the ISO feeds available for the media partners. It is a camera that created a lot of impact, and now it is everywhere. I think the challenge on our side is to keep consistency across the 104 games. We\u2019re working with Lenovo technology behind it to enhance it even more, and we\u2019re excited because this is a great resource. Fans love it, so we\u2019re excited for what could come up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about just finding people, it\u2019s about the best production model to deliver a high-quality product and minimise risks\u201d<\/p>\n
With the first crews due to arrive onsite in mid-May, the IBC in Dallas is also taking shape. As well as housing operations for the host broadcast and rights holders, this will also welcome the centralised VAR, plus all the content seen on the in-stadium big screens will be generated here.<\/p>\n
The broadcast contribution network is through Verizon. \u201cAll cameras come to the IBC,\u201d explained Sanchez. \u201cWe are doing centralised replays from there as well. From there, we generate the feeds that we distribute to our media partners, everything from SRT to satellite. For the first time in a World Cup, our partners will be able to access the same router that media partners have when they are inside at the IBC, even if they are outside. We have our post production and editing hub in London, replicating something that we did in Australia and New Zealand back in 2023 and it worked very well. We found a lot of talent in the UK, so we want to take advantage of that talent, and for us, from the budget perspective, it\u2019s more advantageous.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graphics, replay and shading are all centralised, although there will be some replay operators on site in case of a loss of connectivity. \u201cWith 16 teams, that means you need 16 replay operators, maybe 10 or 11, per crew. That\u2019s a lot of people. Having a centralised facility really allows us to get the best in the world, all under the same roof, all working on multiple matches,\u201d said King.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the FIFA World Cup 2026 just a few months away,\u00a0Oscar Sanchez, head of host broadcast production, FIFA,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-513778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}