Live From FIFA Women's World Cup: Fox Sports' Live Social and Digital Content Plan Grows, Even Despite Time Difference With U.S. Market

Live From FIFA Women's World Cup: Fox Sports' Live Social and Digital Content Plan Grows, Even Despite Time Difference With U.S. Market Deeper integration of tech from Tagboard, Riedel brings added efficiency By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital

Wednesday, August 2, 2023 - 3:56 pm

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FIFA World Cups are wildly exciting projects to work on. But, as with any major global international sports event, fruitful opportunities always bring a set of major challenges. There's perhaps no bigger challenge for Fox Sports at the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup than the time difference.

Fox Sports is producing its live social and digital show, World Cup NOW, from a set on the banks of Sydney Harbour. (All photos: Fox Sports)

With many of the matches in Australia and New Zealand happening during overnight hours in the U.S., it begged the question: would the aggressive, live-programming plan that Fox Sports Digital's team flexed during the men's FIFA World Cup in Doha last year even make sense this time around?

The answer was a resounding yes. Not only did Fox Sports Digital choose not to back off, but it decided to go even bigger and harder.

We're always going to stay true to live, says Ricardo Perez-Selsky, senior director, digital production operations, Fox Sports.

@MelissaMOrtiz was every Colombia fan after that late winner @stuholden | @JimmyConrad | @CarliLloyd pic.twitter.com/qEtjIusFDD

- FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) July 30, 2023

From a gorgeous set at the Hickson Road Reserve under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Fox Sports is back with its live social show, World Cup NOW, on Twitter (X) and the FOX Sports App, and is clipping and producing a wealth of original content, producing wall-to-wall coverage of the entire FIFA Women's World Cup, and offering daily coverage on the status of the U.S. Women's National Team (USWNT).

Perez-Selsky says that his group will actually produce more live hours in Sydney than it did in Doha. Nearly 1 times as much, in fact. For some perspective, the Fox Sports Digital team produced a whopping 160 live shows exclusively for digital and social platforms at the men's FIFA World Cup in Doha last year.

Multiple digital-first programs, including the State of the Union Podcast with Alexi Lalas, are broadcasting from the Sydney set.

Those added hours are coming in the form of more live halftime streams, as well as longer bridge shows between matches. During the men's tournament, a post-match show might go 20 minutes followed by a dropout, before returning for a pre-match show 30 minutes or so later. During the Group Stage at the Women's World Cup, the plan has been to, instead, stay on the air from match stoppage time into the first three minutes of the following match. That's live for approximately 45 minutes straight.

The output is testament to not simply the tireless effort of the Fox Sports Digital team but the seamless integration between the broadcast and the digital sides of the house.

Fox Soccer is truly one cross-platform family, says Michael Bucklin, SVP, digital content, Fox Sports. Whenever I say we' when referring to Fox Sports Digital, people like [Executive Producer, FIFA World Cup on Fox] David Neal or [President, Production and Operations,] Brad Zager are quick to correct me. It's one big team.

Key Enhancements to Tech Workflows Besides the set's beautiful backdrop of Sydney Harbour and the Sydney Opera House, along with a new LED wall, the Fox Sports Digital team is enjoying some significant improvements to its live workflows at this Women's World Cup.

Instead of breaking between post-match and pre-match shows, as Fox Sports Digital did during coverage of the men's 2022 FIFA World Cup in Doha, live streams stay live and bridge between matches. That puts shows live for between 45 minutes and a full hour.

A huge improvement from the effort in Doha comes in the form of deeper integration with two key vendor partners: Tagboard and Reidel Communications.

According to Perez-Selsky, deeper use of Tagboard not only streamlines graphical workflows but makes the on-air product fresher and more fun. All name fonts for every live stream are run directly through Tagboard; at the men's World Cup, a designer had to whip up an individual .png file for any font appearing on screen. Going directly through Tagboard allows changes to be made on the fly and spur-of-the-moment on-screen fonts to be added more quickly.

We have a Tagboard producer in-country with us this time, says Perez-Selsky. That has made a big difference. They've basically become like a secondary producer on the show because we have so much social-media integration to what we do. That has been a big improvement.

Spearheading the Tagboard efforts are Associate Tagboard Producer Trip Westmoreland, as well as Tagboard Specialists Alex Hobbs, Nicolette Rojo, and Cole Weinstein.

Deploying Reidel Communications' Bolero product has greatly improved comms on the set and, more important, with the Los Angeles-based remote team, headed by Fox Sports Senior Director, Digital Operations, Rachel Sollenberger. Previously, all real-time comms were done via Slack and Zoom.

It just makes all of the difference, says Perez-Selsky. They're pulling late-night shifts, obviously: starting their day at 1 a.m. and finishing it at 10 a.m. Having them on quick communication has been so great.

Another tech enhancement this year is going fully wireless on microphones and IFBs for on-air talent on the set.

Playing key roles in the operational and technical efforts for Fox Sports Digital at this FIFA Women's World Cup are Senior Manager, Technical Operations, John Marcus; Associate Manager, Technical Operations, Chris Cheshire; Senior Manager, Production Operations, Tho

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2023/08/02/live-from-fifa-womens-world-cup...
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