
Football Summit 2025: FIFA's Oscar Sanchez talks career progression, World Cup preparations and more By Jo Ruddock
Friday, March 21, 2025 - 08:05
Print This Story
From being in front of the camera hosting entertainment shows in his native Costa Rica, to spending more than a decade at Concacaf, latterly as director broadcast operations, EP and media distribution, Oscar Sanchez's path to his current role at FIFA has certainly been varied. But this variety provided essential experiences and learnings that are relevant to his current role as head of broadcast production, he told the audience at Football Summit yesterday (20 March).
I was at Concacaf for 14 years and it was a great experience, he said. Moving to FIFA, I think I have an advantage, because having worked at Concacaf before you understand how a sports league or sports federation works, which is very important. Then the other part is you become scrappy. Scrappy for some is a word that doesn't have positive connotations, but to me, it's very good, because you learn how to do things with less resources. For instance, I'm not ashamed to say I have lost two games in my life that went black completely. One was because the uplink truck never made it to Guatemala, so we were not able to make it to America. I said at that time, this is the last time that happens to me. So we started doing IP, very early, in 2017. When it worked and the team in Miami could see the signal, it was like magic to me.
Given that much of Sanchez's work took place in parts of the Caribbean and the Americas where connectivity could not be guranateed, this approach raised some eyebrows.
People said to me, you're crazy - in all those beautiful islands that people go to for vacations, but never for work, you're never going to be able to find connectivity'. Last year, we did over 200 games with IP, using everything from TVU and LiveU to Haivision, whatever was available. And we had fewer issues than we had with satellite, particularly when it came to transporting kit between islands. So I learned a lot..
For Sanchez two major events are currently consuming much of his time, the first Club World Cup, set to take place in the US in June and July, and the 2026 World Cup, which will be hosted by Canada, Mexico and the US.
The Club World Cup 2025 is massive. It's 64 games in a very short time across 12 venues in the United States. It's very big, not only in terms of the production that we're putting together, but also in terms of the passion that the fans are going to show. It's less than three months away and we're excited to be showing that to the world.
In terms of the production setup, FIFA is opting for a traditional approach. There will be 11 production teams one based in each city (two stadiums in Orlando are being used), he explained. Then we are going to have an IBCC a smaller version of an IBC at MetLife Stadium in New York, with a more limited presence of media partners on site. From there we'll create and distribute the world feed and make sure that everyone gets that. We're also testing a couple of things related to 2026.
About the World Cup, Sanchez said 2025 is massive, but 2026 is humongous. it's 16 venues, 104 games and there won't be a day without a game until 27 days after the beginning of the tournament. We're going to have our IBC at Dallas. It's a fantastic place, and we're excited to be there. We're going to have 60 production crews based in each city, we're not going to be moving them around, but the replay operations and camera shading are being done from the IBC, so we're working a very complex setup. It's going to be an interesting one, because it demands a lot of from the people and it demands a lot from the suppliers that we're working with and engaging with. The USA, Mexico and Canada are very different, very diverse, and you need to plan now to be ready to deliver what you need to deliver.
After six months with FIFA, Sanchez continues to learn: I think one of the things that I have found here is that this is a service position. I would love to say that I'm creative, that I can tell any of the directors what they need to do, but I don't do that. My position is to make sure, just like the rest of the philosophy of the organisation, that we're serving correctly those who are buying our rights.
More from Sports Video Group
25/04/2025
Super Bowl Streaming Success: A Conversation with Tubi's Chief Product & Tec...
25/04/2025
Tariff Turmoil: Trump's Trade Policy Sparks Uncertainty at NAB and Increases...
24/04/2025
Live From NFL Draft 2025: NFL Media Splits Sprawling Production Between Green Ba...
24/04/2025
Live From NFL Draft 2025: Van Wagner Turns Titletown Into Center of Fan Entertai...
24/04/2025
Live From the NFL Draft: NFL Media Splits Massive Production Between Green Bay a...
24/04/2025
Comcast Fills SpinCo Sports Executive Ranks With Matt Hong as President, Jeff Be...
23/04/2025
Audio Helps Chess.com Checkmate Cheating Matches are produced using REMI workflows By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Wednesday, April 23, 2025 - 7:00 am
Print Th...
23/04/2025
Tech Focus: Intercoms, Part 1 - Key to Onsite, REMI, Hybrid Operations Intercoms keep increasingly disparate production locations together By Dan Daley, Audio ...
23/04/2025
Speaking my language: Bringing AI to the fore with real time audio translation f...
22/04/2025
Pushing the game: Growing the popularity of the 2025 Women's Six Nations thr...
22/04/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: RedFlag AI CEO Max Eisendrath on Creating a One-Stop Shop...
22/04/2025
Live from The Crucible: BBC Sport's Phil Bigwood discusses transitioning the...
22/04/2025
Live from The Crucible: Sunset Vine makes the first subtle changes of many for i...
22/04/2025
You Are There': FOX Sports, Sony, Hawk-Eye Innovations Break Down the Latest...
21/04/2025
Award-Winning Producer/Director Don Mischer Dead at 85 He directed Olympic Opening Ceremonies and Super Bowl Halftime Shows By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Dire...
21/04/2025
The strength of kindness: Collaborative effort helps Special Olympics World Wint...
21/04/2025
Nashville Juggles A Cornucopia Of Sports With Its Star on the Rise NFL, NHL, MLS, MLB AAA, NASCAR want a place in Music City By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Monda...
21/04/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Telstra Broadcast Services CEO Karen Clark on the Challenge of Liv...
21/04/2025
Award Winning Producer/Director Don Mischer Dead at 85 By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Monday, April 21, 2025 - 12:30 pm
Print This Story | Subscr...
21/04/2025
The Fox Sports Way: How AR Graphics, XR Tech, and LED Displays Have Become Cente...
18/04/2025
NHL Playoffs 2025: TNT Sports Hits the Road for Onsite Productions With Mobile U...
18/04/2025
EVSs S bastien Verlaine on U.S. Expansion, Next-Generation Products Beyond replay, offerings also target asset management and media infrastructure By Ken Kersc...
18/04/2025
ESPN Unleashes 4DREPLAY as NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championships Hit ABC Men's championships to follow Saturday night on ESPN2 By Brandon Costa, Direct...
18/04/2025
Visualizing Victory: The Latest in AR, XR, and Virtual Production in Live Sports This panel discussion featured leaders from ESPN, CBS Sports, Warner Bros. Disc...
18/04/2025
NHL Playoffs 2025: With 16 Games in First Six Days, ESPN Deploys Variety of Remo...
17/04/2025
The Curling Group Puts On Inaugural Curling All-Star Game in Nashville The location in Music City is intended to broaden the sport's appeal By Dan Daley, ...
17/04/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Cisco's Bryan Bedford on Providing End-to-End Support for Clie...
17/04/2025
FIFA's Oscar Sanchez on the Task of Producing a North American World Cup The head of host broadcast production spoke during SVG Europe's Football Summit...
17/04/2025
NBA Playoffs 2025: As Play-In Tourney Continues, TNT Sports Preps Escalated Game...
17/04/2025
NBA Playoffs 2025: ESPN's Postseason Run Highlighted by New Cameras, Player ...
16/04/2025
SVG Digital Engagement Forum 2025: All Sessions Now Available to Watch on SVG PL...
16/04/2025
SVG College Sports Media Awards 2025: Today is the Final Deadline to Enter! All entries must be received by end-of-day April 16 By Brandon Costa, Director of D...
16/04/2025
Ross Video's Kevin Cottam on Carbonite HyperMax, Other Innovations at NAB 20...
15/04/2025
From Homer to Mickey, How ESPN Is Blazing the Live Animated Broadcast Trail ESPNs Amy Nelson, Sparky Sparrgrove, and Spike Szykowny offer an inside look at the ...
15/04/2025
SVG College Sports Media Awards 2025: Final Deadline to Enter is Wednesday All entries must be received by end-of-day April 16 By Brandon Costa, Director of Di...
15/04/2025
Football Summit 2025: BBC Sport and Sunset Vine share plans for UEFA Women's...
15/04/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: ScorePlay Cofounder and CEO Vic Tixier on Media Manag...
15/04/2025
Inside IOWN: Envisioning a high-speed, high-capacity future for live productions By Joe OHalloran
Tuesday, April 15, 2025 - 09:38
Print This Story
As dele...
15/04/2025
Neither fair nor objective , Mediapro reacts strongly to LaLiga decision to awar...
15/04/2025
HBS and NVP take LaLiga production and distribution for first and second divisio...
15/04/2025
LA28 Details Venue Plans for 2028 Summer Games By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, April 15, 2025 - 1:37 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
St...
14/04/2025
NAB 2025 in Review: Broadcast Audio Faces a Future of Tariff-Induced Higher Cost...
14/04/2025
Changing the world: Behind the collaborative production of the 2025 Special Olym...
14/04/2025
From Paris to Milano Cortina: The International Paralympic Committee on the move...
14/04/2025
SVG College Summit 2025: Jimmy Platt, ESPN's College Football Playoff, Women...
14/04/2025
NAB 2025 in Review: SVG Audio Roundtable Reflects On a Changing Industry Global sports, speech intelligibility, digital microphones are on the table By Dan Dal...
14/04/2025
NAB 2025 in Review: The Pairing of AI and Audio Is Possible But it won't necessarily happen tomorrow By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Monday, April 14, 2025 - ...
14/04/2025
WNBA Draft 2025: ESPN's Onsite Effort Fits Into NYC Grid for National Teleca...
11/04/2025
The Teeter Totter Podcast featuring Mario Zecca and Corey Alberty: Super Bowl LI...