Live From the 2018 World Cup: Fox Sports' World Cup EP David Neal Is Proud of the Coverage The U.S. team's absence has spurred a more global production By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director Friday, July 6, 2018 - 7:41 am
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For the entire team at Fox Sports, the 2018 World Cup is the culmination of years of effort, planning, and dreaming. David Neal, executive producer, FIFA World Cup, Fox Sports, has overseen just about all of it since joining Fox in 2012. He has drawn on all the skills he has acquired in a career spanning nearly four decades, his work on nine Olympics for NBC Sports being the key to understanding the world of global sports-event coverage. Neal sat down with SVG to discuss the journey to Russia, the accomplishments, the challenges, and more.
Fox Sports' David Neal: Anybody who watches us for more than five minutes, whether they like our product or not, comes away with a sense that Fox Sports really, really loves soccer and the World Cup.
Now that you are here at the World Cup, how does it compare with an Olympics?
It's very similar to the Olympics, and the big difference is, it is one sport. With the Olympics, you are juggling all of the different venues, and part of your daily task is to orient the viewers to what they are going to see that day. Here, viewers know what they are coming in for, and that is world-class soccer. So that's a big difference.
But the pacing of yourself is very similar. I remember, at the Olympics, you would hit that middle weekend, around day eight, and then that second week would just drag sometimes. But, here, the first 15 days is really a cycle that is unending. The lucky part is, those 15 days are when everybody is freshest. We would have our production meetings at the hotel at 8 a.m. and then be here until midnight and then go back to the hotel and come back.
And I guess one thing about the Olympics is, there is no slowing down towards the end, whereas, with the World Cup, there are many fewer matches in the last two weeks than in the first two.
It was amazing to think, the other day, that, when the Group Stage ended, we had already done 50 games. You look back on them, and they are a blur. So, now, when people are probably a little more fatigued, the rest days develop, and I think that's a good thing.
One of the big things coming in was not having the U.S. team here. How did that impact preparation, and what are the pros and cons?
I think it has made us more global, and, since October, we have said we now focus on all 32 teams plus Russia the country. And I honestly think that, as the planets have aligned in this tournament, and it has become a tournament of upsets that doesn't follow form, the viewership numbers at home show that it is resonating with viewers. They love seeing something like Japan making a run at Belgium and then Belgium showing world-class form to win.
And it's funny: I read a few things in industry publications the day after we lost Ronaldo and Messi in the same day that it would be terrible news for Fox. Then, the next day, the two matches go to PKs, and those were our two highest-rated days of the event so far.
The dividend from our not having to plan for the U.S. team is, we have been more open to the entire picture. I think we have been better able to tell the stories of all these countries that don't have the red, white, and blue in them. And we are more well-rounded as a production unit because we had to look at the whole field.
And, of course, the tournament is a story that unfolds. People are watching teams that they otherwise wouldn't watch play, and then they want to tune in to watch the rest of the story, the eliminations, the penalty kicks
It gives us a broader canvas to paint on. [Fox Sports Senior Coordinating Producer, Features,] Jen Pransky sent me a note that her unit has sent out more than 300 different production elements and none of them have had the stars and stripes in them. It's not what we planned for, but the dividends are paying off as we get deeper into this tournament and we still have brand names like England, Brazil, and France. I think we are doing a better job than maybe we would have otherwise.
What are some of the lessons with things like streaming that have allowed people to tune in from anywhere?
It's like night and day. The streaming nature and availability of everything we are doing has been a game-changer. And now that we are able to combine numbers so that you get a sense of overall views, it's not just the TV viewers but online as well. When you aggregate that number, it is pretty breathtaking.
This tournament, this format, and this sport are ideally suited for a more robust streaming environment. The time zones force a lot of people during the day, when they are trying to get some work done, to keep an eye on the tournament. But technology has made it much more reliable, and, if someone has a moment to watch the match at 10:30 at their desk, the technology is not going to be a problem. Even just four years ago, there is evidence that it wasn't that easy to do: it wasn't just one app or one button; you had to jump through two or three hoops. But now the Fox Sports app is so well-developed that it is one button, and that is hugely important.
What has it been like working with HBS and FIFA? You worked with them on the Women's World Cup and Confederations Cup, but what has this tournament been like?
HBS is the gold standard, they absolutely are. From [CEO] Francis Tellier to [Chief Content Officer] Dan Miowdownik to [CTO] J rg Sander, they understand television and how it can showcase the sport better than anybody.
One of the big differences between the Olympics and the World Cup is that, at the Olympics, if we wanted to put 15 cameras in swimming because we wanted to see e
