About one third of the way through the 2026 FIFA World Cup and Fox Sports is assessing the first two weeks of coverage in the quadrennial tournament. As the host U.S. broadcaster, Fox Sports is working out of the International Broadcast Center at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, where HBS, (Host Broadcaster Services). The facility serves as HBS's global broadcast operations center for 180 broadcasters covering the tournament taking place across 16 host cities in Canada, Mexico and the USA, June 11-July 19.
As expected, the technical operations have run smoothly with the biggest challenges being pure logistics and preparing for the unexpected, according to Kevin Callahan, senior vice president of field operations and engineering for Fox Sports.
“The biggest challenge is by far the weather and travel in North America and the size and enormity of the coverage,” he said. Criss-crossing between stadiums on the west coast to the east coast in one day while managing coverage of multiple matches simultaneously is no easy task but Callahan believes the network has created the kind of memorable event that resonates with soccer fans.
“What we are bringing to the viewer is truly amazing,” he said. “We want to be where the fans are, we want to create that sense of FOMO for fans—if you're not out at the matches, you're missing the big party of this tournament.”
NEVER ENOUGH
In broadcast, one can never have enough redundancy and that philosophy extends to the World Cup like perhaps no other event, especially one played in the middle of summer when weather plays such an important role, from whether a game is played on schedule or technical or on-air talent have to travel from city to city.
“We have plans in place for every scenario that we can think of,” Callahan said. "I have a firm belief, if you have one, you have none; if you have two, you have one. So, when it comes to equipment redundancy, we have that in place. We have some personnel redundancy, but we also have backup plans when it comes to travel.”
One area that Callahan noted was the impact of construction on maintaining connections.
“It’s construction season in the summer in the U.S., particularly in northern routes, and we've certainly dealt with our fair share of fiber cuts,” Callahan said, adding that none of those cuts have resulted in the loss of signal “because of the diversity that our network engineering and architecture team has put in place.”
All matches have commentators in-venue, but Fox Sports’ studio show travels to venues across the three countries as well, giving Fox a presence inside each stadium while keeping much of the production engine in familiar facilities.
Fox Sports is leaning on its HRP (Home Run Productions) workflows for both its match and studio coverage. Upgraded for the World Cup, HRP’s REMI infrastructure is a standards-based IP workflow that uses Appear’s X platform to support both JPEG XS and low-latency HEVC on a single platform.
Although the matches themselves are produced by HBS on behalf of FIFA, Fox picks up the feed at the International Broadcast Center in Dallas and sends it to production facilities in L.A.
The link between traveling studio teams and the L.A.-based hub includes Fox’s BRISK systems, which Callahan describes as ST 2110-based flypacks that integrate with the company’s permanent facilities, with JPEG XS encoding from Appear used to support low-latency feeds from venues back to the control rooms.
In practical terms, the model allows Fox to keep the live feel of a stadium production without having to replicate the same full-scale setup in every city. Commentators and hosts can remain close to the action, while core production staff work from a consistent base.
'MASTERS OF RESILIENCY'
When the HBS opened last month, FIFA President Gianni Infantino hailed the facility as "the most technologically advanced and top of the art international broadcast center that the world has ever seen."
Callahan sang the praises of HBS as well.
“They truly are masters of resiliency and redundancy as well—they have a plan for everything,” Callahan said. “The signals that they've been able to provide us in the world have been, the signals themselves look pristine. The super slow mo replays that they've added more of this year have been fantastic and really help share the emotion of the tournament.”
Callahan was particularly happy with HBS’s increased attention to audio.
"Over the years, we've been commenting to HBS that we want more field effects—we want to hear more of what's actually going on on the pitch,” Callahan said. “One of the challenges that you face when it comes to soccer is just the sheer size of the pitch and the distance you can actually put a microphone from where the sound is coming from. HBS has done a fantastic job at being able to capture those close ball effects a lot better, and what's going on on the pitch a lot better, and I think this tournament they've nailed it more than anything.”
Since early May, Fox Sports has produced all its content in HDR, and Callahan noted the progress the network has made on the standard.
“Fox switched our entire facility to HDR for the first time, so everything that we're doing in the building is coming natively as HDR, Callahan said. “In the past, when we've done these events, [some of] our studio programming would have originated in SDR. So this is the first time that truly everything is HDR.”
Having a consistent look throughout the expanded 104-match tournament has been a goal from the first day and Callahan says HBS’s role is crucial in this respect.
“You'll be hard pressed to be able to tell the difference between one vs. the other when it comes to the quality of replays, the quality of coverage, they're all consistent, which is really what you want.”
