Fox will take “the studio on the road” for the FIFA World Cup this summer, similar to its Big Noon Kickoff college football show, to “bring the spectacle” to the tournament, according to Jonathan Tannenwald of the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER. Fox VP/Production Zac Kenworthy said at a media event Thursday, “This is, just as a starting point, the biggest production Fox Sports has ever put on in our company’s history. … And these three U.S. [game] days in the group stage, we know are going to be huge.” Tannenwald writes the exact number of games where Fox will have a road show “isn’t set yet, but all the U.S. team’s games will certainly be on the list.” On those days, the network will “effectively have two studios: one at headquarters in Los Angeles, and one at the big game.” Some of the logistics with having a studio show for fans are “obviously different at a World Cup than a Penn State football game.” There is “a world’s worth of TV networks on site instead of just one, and there are major security perimeters around the stadiums.” But everyone at Fox “knows what the concept is supposed to be, and plenty of viewers at home do too.” The cast at U.S. games is expected to include veteran host Rob Stone, panelists Clint Dempsey, Alexi Lalas, Carli Lloyd and Landon Donovan if he is not on the road calling another game; John Strong and Stu Holden in the booth and reporters Jenny Taft and Tom Rinaldi (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, 5/22).
CANDID CONVERSATION: THE ATHLETIC’s Andrew Marchand wrote with the World Cup around the corner and Fox “at the epicenter in the U.S.” as the exclusive English-language broadcaster, it is Fox analyst and former NFLer Tom Brady “sitting down with his new colleague,” Fox World Cup studio analyst and former soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimović, for “a conversation dubbed ‘Zlatan x Brady: GOATS on GREATNESS.’” It is an “hour-plus talk between the two that Fox is going to release digitally in clips over the next few days before putting the complete discussion on its social and YouTube channels next Tuesday,” the same day as USA National Team’s roster reveal. The hope was for the two football stars to “forget there was a camera as they just spoke about their mindsets.” Ibrahimović “will be a focus of Fox’s World Cup studio coverage.” He has “been eager to learn TV.” For the World Cup, there are “no further plans to use Brady yet,” but if James Corden’s late-night World Cup show on Fox “wants Brady, the executives will reach out.” Fox Sports President Brad Zager said that in this “Zlatan x Brady: GOATS on GREATNESS” case, Fox “asked Brady to just talk with Zlatan, not interview him” (THE ATHLETIC, 5/22).
IN THE STUDIO: In N.Y., Ethan Sears noted Fox is “bringing in a laundry list of names to work in the studio,” including former soccer players Thierry Henry, Clarence Seedorf, Javier Hernández, John Obi Mikel, Thiago Alcântara, Juan Pablo Ángel and Peter Schmeichel alongside its crew of former U.S. internationals that includes Lalas, Lloyd, Dempsey, and Donovan. Kenworthy also said that Fox has “built a new ‘Stage B’ for its coverage, along with a graphics package tailored to each nation” (N.Y. POST, 5/21).
