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.
North America Stories
22/07/2026
Among other tweaks to coverage, the broadcaster added announce positions in the ...
22/07/2026
The Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) has reported a sharp acceleration in Australia's sportstech sector, with revenue growth rising from 10% in...
22/07/2026
From a retrofitted broadcast bus to packed Match Day Live! events, Bennett detai...
22/07/2026
TMRW Sports has named Brendan Donohue as President, Flag Football, where he will lead the company's professional flag football business in partnership with ...
22/07/2026
Stephen Arnold Music (SAM) designed and produced soundtracks for nine projection...
22/07/2026
Harmonic has announced a $25,000 donation to Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) fo...
22/07/2026
Telemundo has announced it has acquired from UC3 exclusive U.S. Spanish-language...
22/07/2026
The Rest Is Football, hosted by Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Micah Richards, ...
22/07/2026
Sports Studio has announced a partnership with TheSoul Group to distribute Free ...
22/07/2026
Daktronics has concluded its 2026 High School Video Summit, a two-day hybrid event combining virtual sessions with hands-on host school visits across the countr...
22/07/2026
FOR-A America will exhibit at the MMCA Show in Pensacola, Florida (July 21-24), marking the company's first appearance at the house of worship AV event. FOR...
22/07/2026
The New York Yankees have selected Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) to connect Ya...
22/07/2026
Calrec will exhibit at IBC 2026 (Stand 8.C47) with demonstrations of its IP-native audio ecosystem built around the Argo console range, and will announce two ne...
22/07/2026
Solid State Logic has announced the appointment of Algam EKO as its distributor for SSL large format consoles in Italy, covering the Live, Broadcast, and Studio...
22/07/2026
FloSports has announced the launch of the FloSports Channel, a free ad-supported streaming channel premiering on Prime Video in the U.S. on July 21. The channel...
22/07/2026
Banana Ball TV (BTV), the broadcast operation of the Savannah Bananas, has insta...
22/07/2026
SiriusXM and Audacy have announced an agreement bringing 42 Audacy sports, news, and talk stations from 29 U.S. markets to SiriusXM. Twenty-three Audacy sports ...
22/07/2026
The collaboration produced more than 500 short-form videos across four cities th...
22/07/2026
At 2,600 sq. ft., the new home of digital content houses a main studio, podcast space, and an auxiliary control room
NFL franchises are accelerating their prod...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Proven managed IP solution helps broadcasters confidently navigate the future of broadcast distribution
LTN announces it has completed successful satellite-to-...
22/07/2026
Today, Chaos announced V-Ray 7, update 4, eliminating the need for asset conversions and tool switching, which slow down media and entertainment pipelines. Arti...
22/07/2026
An AI playground for the Project Indigo camera app
Marc Levoy July 22, 2026
0 Comments
At left is the user interface of our Playground, running on an ...
22/07/2026
Custom Consoles announces the completion of a large technical furniture project for Radio T l vision Suisse (RTS) at the networks recently inaugurated productio...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Culver City, CA, July 21, 2026 3D streaming infrastructure provider Miris today announced glTF intake, including the binary .glb form, to its spatial streamin...
22/07/2026
Documentary Lo Invisible Captured with Blackmagic PYXIS 6K
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
Camera's versatile design allowed filmmakers to c...
22/07/2026
AAF Bridge converts AAF and XML Timelines to Ableton Live - and back
Jerome Gardier July 21, 2026
0 Comments
A two-way converter for macOS and Windows...
22/07/2026
From Class to Concert: Explore a Student-Led Production of David Bowies Work Thr...
22/07/2026
Before a healthcare robot can be useful in the real world, it has to learn how the physical world pushes back. Anatomy varies. Instruments bend, press, slip and...
21/07/2026
With winners Spain having already paraded the World Cup trophy through Madrid in front of millions of fans and the dust now settling on an epic tournament of th...
21/07/2026
In a time of disarray in regional sports broadcasting, the league will provide c...
21/07/2026
When NEP designed one of its largest recurring mobile production unit fleets for PGA TOUR
coverage, the leading media services provider faced a familiar challe...
21/07/2026
Warner Bros. Discovery's unbroken lead is interrupted as sports and live mus...
21/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/07/2026
Across the TV and streaming ecosystem, industry players face mounting pressure to do more with less. They must simplify operations, protect premium content and ...
21/07/2026
Tuxera, a leading prover of quality-assured file systems and networking technologies, is bringing its latest advances in connectivity performance to the media w...
21/07/2026
COW Jobs: Apple Motion Expert for Custom FCP Rigged Graphics Package
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
HIRING: Apple Motion Expert for Custom FCP ...
21/07/2026
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, will use its presence at IBC2026 (stand 7.A01, Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September) to...
21/07/2026
Calrec will be located in Hall 8, on Stand C47
Beyond bigger
For years, broadcast facilities were built around one assumption: provision for the biggest pro...
21/07/2026
Pebble, the leading automation, content management and integrated channel specialist, will discuss its future-facing developments for the new generation of medi...
21/07/2026
nxtedition returns to IBC2026 with its consolidated production platform, showing how scripting, editing, graphics, AI-assisted tools and automation can work wit...
21/07/2026
C2PA content signing helps broadcasters, public institutions, and publishers give audiences a verifiable record of where their video content came from and how i...
21/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
Football Summit 2025: FIFA's Oscar Sanchez talks career progression, World Cup preparations and more By Jo Ruddock 
