FIFAs Oscar Sanchez on World Cup Effort: Were Feeling Good and Where We Want to Be

To call the 2026 FIFA World Cup a big undertaking would be a big understatement. It is a massive effort and for Oscar Sanchez, FIFA's Head of Host Broadcast Operations and the FIFA team it has been a multi-year effort that has involved plenty of stadium visits, construction plans, and hundreds of hours of conversations with rights holders as well as 16 production teams spread out across North America. Sanchez sat down with SVG's Ken Kerschbaumer at the World Cup IBC in Dallas to discuss how things are going and the plans for the weeks ahead.

How are things going so far?

We feel good. We feel that the first days have gone according to the plans that we have put in place. Obviously, you always have some things that you want to correct when you work on a project of this scale. I mean, whoever has been in this business understands that RF is one of the biggest challenges on Earth. So, we have been battling RF here and there, but overall, most of the issues that we have had have not made it on air, and that is the good thing.

The atmosphere has been amazing. The coverage from our teams has been really good. We're very pleased with the coverage of the four Match Directors who have already delivered their first match and the work of their production teams.

We also had very beautiful and very complex ceremonies in each host country and that was basically doing an entertainment show on top of the biggest football match on Earth. So technically, things went very well and we feel positive. I think if we have to create a tagline for these first few days, it is: We are positive. We are where we wanted to be.

Oscar Sanchez, FIFA's Head of Host Broadcast Operations inside the IBC in Dallas.One opening match with all the ceremony and stuff is hard enough. So how did your team get ready for that, and did somebody else handle that whole aspect of the program, the opening?

We are lucky because, firstly, we have a large team working on this, both at FIFA, HBS, and all the agencies working with us. Our Stadium Entertainment team is probably one of the best stadium entertainment teams and special event teams in the world, and they put together the ceremonies working alongside the agencies selected to work with them. They took care of the ceremonies from the creative side, and we worked together to make sure that the resources we had for the games were available to them and to coordinate. They had directors that were specific for the ceremonies. Kudos to our stadium entertainment and special event teams for the work they did with the ceremonies and the way we have worked together as one team.

Were they cutting those shows from here at the IBC where the in-venue production is done?

No, the ceremonies were being cut from the stadiums, and the stadium entertainment during the game is cut from here.

Let's go to the compound a little bit. Some of the operations like shading, replay, graphics, and audio mixing are being done here. So, who is on-site where, and where are they located? Is it a mix of cabins and production trucks?

It varies. For instance, in Dallas Stadium, we have a cabin with a flypack-style set-up. You have the Match Director, you have all the camera operators, and you have an audio set-up because the main mix is created here at the IBC, but we also have people working on the mix there and for redundancy purposes they can take over if needed. In some other stadiums, instead of cabins for the production set-up, we have trucks with the different providers we're working with. I think given the size of this event, it is not realistic to think that only one provider could make this possible, and we're seeing it on a day like today where we have four games starting with a 2 p.m. kick-off and we will finish at around 2 a.m.

We have shading here at the IBC as well replay operations and, again, we have a replay operator at the stadium. Graphics-wise, we have Alston Elliot working with us here at the IBC with all the graphics from here for both us and stadium entertainment, but they also have somebody on-site who can take over quickly if there's an issue.

You mentioned the long day today and there will be a bunch of them in the next few weeks. How are you ensuring everyone stays as fresh as possible?

There are a couple of things. One is the fact that we have our teams at each venue and they are focusing on their own venues. So, for instance, the team that did the Mexico City game for the opening had a rest, and now they are preparing for the second game that is coming up there, Colombia vs. Uzbekistan.

Here at the IBC, I think that more than ever we have shifts. We never pretended that one person is going to be doing MCR, QC, or replay 24/7 for all the games. We need a staggered plan. Therefore, we can give people the rest that is required for a long stretch like this. It is the same with HBS, and that has been a priority for them, a priority for us, a priority for AE Live, and for all the other partners that we're working with. But I think it is humanly impossible to be on top of all the games and everything that is happening.

Just for reference, today we're doing four games-that is what people will be watching at home wherever they are-and on the back of it, we're doing the Match Day-1 activities for the games that will happen tomorrow. That is all the network usage, all the coordination, all the QC, all the operation-all that is happening live.

And I am sure the crews at the stadiums that already have a match under their belt are happy they aren't getting on a plane to fly to another stadium.

We have heard that from them, and it's good, and we like it like that. It's good because they have time also to review, to take time to see what went well and what they need to improve. We have something similar here at the IBC in Dallas because th

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