SVG Sit-Down: FIFA's Oscar Sanchez and HBS's Paul King on Deploying 16 Production Teams in 16 World Cup Venues

The two execs discuss the goals and the challenges of building a huge multi-cultural production effort spanning three countries

The 2026 FIFA World Cup might not officially begin for a few more days, but, across North America, hundreds of the world's best soccer-production professionals are working hard to nail down operations at 16 venues across the U.S, Mexico, and Canada and at the IBC in Dallas. The decision to have 16 production teams, the most ever, was made for several reasons, but it means that the tapestry that will tell the story of the 2026 World Cup will involve more people, more perspectives, and more languages than ever.

Oscar Sanchez, head of broadcast production, FIFA, and Paul King, senior producer, HBS, sat down with SVG to discuss how the 16 teams were chosen, the overall production philosophy, and the challenge of maintaining editorial quality across so many teams and so many soccer cultures.

Tell us about having 16 production teams for the 16 venues.

Sanchez: I think the approach that we have had at FIFA with HBS throughout the years has been global. But the main difference here is that we need more crews. We need to minimize the risk of traveling people across a big country like the U.S. or a massive country like Canada or Mexico. We need to make sure that we're minimizing the risk, and that was the main thing.

And we have been working with HBS for many, many years - and, specifically around this tournament, for the last four or five years - on identifying the people that we are going to use and what is the best production model. Because it's not about just throwing people in; it's what is the best production model to deliver a high-quality product and minimize risk as well.

Oscar Sanchez and the FIFA team are getting the final pieces in place for the largest FIFA World Cup production ever.We have people from around the world. Historically, it has been very European-focused for a reason: because it's a super-high-level crew of professionals. But, in this case, we wanted to open up more options for others who breathe and enjoy football and know the story of football as well as they do in Europe. Because nobody can say that a country that is the World Cup champion - like Argentina - doesn't live and breathe football.

How did you begin the process of creating those 16 teams? Did you start with four or five that you definitely knew you wanted and then had an open call, like auditions, like a talent show? Everybody wants to be directing or producing the World Cup.

King: There are people who've done many, many World Cups. We've got some real veterans, but Oscar made the good point that there is so much talent out there and there are huge amounts of football being played in South America, obviously in the USA, in all the territories.

It can't just be a European club that we're going to call on the same people every time. With the 16 production teams, that did give us an opportunity to look further outside. There was some debate about that: should we have crews traveling around, should we have fewer crews, and would that aid consistency?

But, in the end, it was felt that venue-based teams was the best way to go. It gives you that total guarantee across such a big area that there is going to be a crew onsite, not stuck in an airport or whatever.

Sanchez: And maybe another detail on this one. I don't say that anybody can direct a football match, but, if you are a director and you're doing this every other week or every week with 10-14 cameras, you get comfortable. But, for a FIFA World Cup, where an average match could be 300 million people - depending on the stage, you get to a billion people - and you have a camera plan of 50 cameras and the pressure of delivering not only the live feed but all the services that you need to deliver, we need to go beyond the technical knowledge. We need to analyze who can be ready to take on this big challenge, because it takes a mental toll. I don't think many people understand - or even we understand - what it is to be seated at a production switcher with 50 sources for a game that everybody's watching around the world. Kudos to them and kudos to the work that HBS does with us to identify the people that we really, really trust for what's coming.

Obviously, there are some cultural differences in the way French directors approach football versus English directors versus American directors, Brazilian, Argentinian. How do you think those cultural differences will be reflected in the on-air product? And are you telling people to bring their own style, or are you saying, Look, we want to compress it and bring it down to where everybody's on the same page ?

King: We've got to try to have a consistent product across 104 matches. You can't have everyone doing their own thing in their own way. Those cultural differences are there, and there's no right or wrong way. What is good direction in Argentina might be different from the UK or might be different from the USA.

Paul King and the team at HBS are focused not only on the technical aspects of the World Cup but also on the countless editorial storylines and meeting the demands of fans anywhere on any platform.As an example of that, what you tend to find in some of those South American countries is that, the way the match is directed, the coaches are always featured far more than maybe there would be in Europe, where you would say the players are more the star. Maybe that's because those coaches are under pressure all the time. As soon as a goal is scored, the default first cut is to the coach's reaction, even if he's not necessarily doing anything, because there is a storyline there.

With things like that, we would probably say, Look, we want to focus more on the players at the start. But that

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2026/06/07/16-fifa-world-cup-venues-16-pro...
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