Fox Sports’ EURO 2024 and Copa America 2024 set at Stage A in Fox Studio Lot, Los Angeles. Virtual … [+]
Soccer around the clock.
For a few days this summer, U.S. soccer fans will be able to watch the beautiful game from early morning till late in the evening as the time difference between UEFA
The crossover starts at 8AM Eastern Time on June 20, with that day’s highlights seeing England taking on Denmark in Frankfurt and Spain playing Italy in Gelsenkirchen in a repeat of the 2020 European Championship semi-finals, before Argentina and Canada get Copa America underway at the Mercedez-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
While this sounds like the perfect day for soccer fans, for broadcaster Fox Sports, it is a major undertaking requiring lots of preparation.
Fox Sports’ VP of Production, Zac Kenworthy, says “we’ve spent months now in the lead up ensuring that plenty of rehearsals are being done, so that the production staff and the team know exactly the beat of those days.”
Kenworthy says the most matches Fox Sports had done previously is 64 for past World Cups, so the 78 matches across the two tournaments is the most the network has broadcast.
But that has allowed Fox Sports to expand its roster, bringing in the likes of former Denmark ‘keeper Peter Schmeichel and former England forward Daniel Sturridge. Kenworthy says that with a “massive amount of firepower” and with everything revolving around Fox’s LA studio, with all the resources in one place, managing work schedules is a little bit easier. He says that production staff will be effectively swapped out on a “line change” to keep everybody fresh when they’re up at 2:00 AM Pacific Time for the start of the work day.
The broadcaster has also gone all out to turn its studio into what it is dubbing a “Cathedral of Soccer.”
Rather than a green screen, the studio uses LED XR screens that Fox first came across when they were used for shooting Star Wars film The Mandalorian. These screens can create a more realistic environment for those on camera, but can also be virtually extended using virtual reality.
Senior Vice President of Tech and Innovation, Zac Fields says that the lightbulb moment for the cathedral-like virtual studio came from a chance introduction to an architect while he was on a trip to a New Zealand. That architect, Damien van Brandenburg actually helped Fox Sports design the studio using a 3D renderer.
Fields says that if you were to actually build the virtual environment in real life, it would take up over 50,000 square feet and that virtual cameras are used to take the audience from room to room, making the studio segments feel more interactive.
One of the analysts in that studio for the 2024 European Championship is former U.S. national team player Stu Holden. As a soccer fan, he is “super excited” by the “marathon” coming up over the next five or six weeks.
As well as being in the studio for the Euros, Holden will be in the stadiums co-commentating on the U.S. games and other big matches at Copa America. He says that in the studio, analysts can only really cover “the top of the iceberg” but for in-game coverage it is possible to peel back the layers and tell a different type of story, requiring an even deeper level of research into players’ history, styles and tendencies.
Holden rates Portugal as a team that could surprise some people at the Euros and says that he likes what head coach Roberto Martinez has done there. He also expects Argentina to be one of the finalists at Copa America.
In some ways, this summer is like a dress-rehearsal for the 2026 World Cup, especially as the U.S. is hosting the Copa America.
While Fox Sports has done plenty of coverage at those U.S. stadiums covering American Football, big tournaments like Copa America are slightly different. Kenworthy says that while for the likes of NFL, Fox Sports is often the sole broadcaster, for big tournaments, they’re competing for space with multiple broadcasters and multiple commentary booths. In this regard, Copa America will give them vital information on how best to set up within the stadium at the 2026 World Cup.
Holden says these tournaments will feel like a mini World Cup. He says being at the stadium gets his adrenaline pumping like it did in his playing days and that “for us, honestly, these tournaments are what it is all about.”
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