It’s been the nerve center for the largest World Cup in history, some 500,000 square feet inside the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center that for the past six weeks has served as home for 200-plus broadcast entities across the globe.
But by Aug. 24, everything inside the International Broadcast Center, the so-called mini-city so integral to this global event, will be moved out.
The deconstruction is expected to begin next Monday night, a day after the World Cup trophy is lifted inside New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium and once the final post-celebration analysis shows have wrapped up.
“Deconstruct, decommission and then move out,” is how Rosa Fleming, director of convention and event services, described the process to The Dallas Morning News.
The IBC has been the most important venue throughout the World Cup. All video, audio and digital feeds from 104 matches across 16 venues in three countries were routed at the IBC, where 200-plus broadcast entities from across the globe were based to receive match feeds, produce studio shows, edit highlights and distribute content worldwide.
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“It’s been very smooth. I haven’t heard any major challenges or hiccups,” Monica Paul, president of the North Texas World Cup Organizing Committee, told The News.
“That’s a hard job to try to tear down part of your convention center [for redevelopment] at the same time when the IBC is going on. There’s a lot of collaboration over the past two years to make that happen. A lot of people who I think ensured that, at least from a city of Dallas standpoint, we could be successful hosting.”
The convention center’s planned redevelopment has been delayed, pushing the opening to 2030. But Fleming said 200,000 square feet of the venue will be operational until 2028, and events are planned as soon as September.
Workers are seen in the master control room before opening ceremonies for the FIFA World Cup 2026 International Broadcast Center (IBC) at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, Monday, June 1, 2026, in Dallas. (Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News)
“This was one of those impossible made possible… we cut a convention center in half,” Fleming said. “If you go across Lamar [Street], you’ll see that that’s coming down, and so we’ll continue that demolition on that side and then this part will remain until 2028, sometime early 2029.”
The IBC build-out began in January, and The News received an exclusive tour of the venue in the latter stages of construction.
Asked in April about the deconstruction of the IBC, a FIFA official told The News: “Crazy thing about this is, five weeks after we’re done, after the final whistle, you will never know this place existed.”
FIFA will take much of the structures inside the venue. Tables and chairs will stay, Fleming said, as will the “technical yard” outside, which includes electrical equipment the convention center can use to support upcoming events.
During a news conference at the IBC before the World Cup, FIFA president Gianni Infantino called the IBC the largest in history and likely the largest the World Cup will see.
Housing some 3,000 media members working all hours of the day and night, the facility never slept. There were scores of mini-studios for pregame shows, live-match production and instant postgame analysis.
“It is really a mini-city,” Daniel Lawson, the senior vice president of global solutions for Verizon, told The News.
And its importance during the 39-day event cannot be overstated.
“This is a never-let-it-fail environment,” Josh Arensberg, Global MD, Sports & Media Technology at Verizon Business, told The News. “This is mission critical.”
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