Live From FIFA World Cup: Fox Sports' Digital Team Finds Big Success With Live Social Streams During the Group Stage, Fox's live Twitter show, FIFA World Cup NOW, pulled in 50 million views By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Wednesday, December 7, 2022 - 3:03 pm
Print This Story
Wednesday marks the first off day in the 2022 FIFA World Cup. It has been 17 consecutive days since the event got under way on Nov. 20. That's 17 lengthy days and lots of hard work for the many broadcasters onsite in Doha. For the growing team at Fox Sports Digital, it's a well-deserved breather.
Fox Sports Digital has been humming along like a steam train for the past two-plus weeks, with highlights of every goal, countless articles, and a robust schedule of live streams produced onsite in Qatar and distributed across the network's social channels, website, and mobile app.
Fox Sports Digital crew members work with on-air talent to plan out content segments for an episode of FIFA World Cup NOW from Fox Sports' set at the Doha Corniche in Qatar. (All photos: Fox Sports)
Most notably, Fox Sports has seen significant success from an ambitious live-streaming plan that delivers studio shows to the @FOXSoccer account on Twitter. According to Fox Sports, FIFA World Cup Now, the pre/postmatch show that streams exclusively to @FOXSoccer, garnered more than 50 million views on Twitter during the Group Stage. Shows surrounding the three USMNT Group Stage matches averaged a whopping 926,000 views; the remaining 88 shows average about 569,000.
By the end of the tournament, an incredible 128 live episodes of FIFA World Cup NOW will have been produced, a major chunk of the 160+ live shows produced exclusively for digital and social platforms.
It's definitely a grind, says Michael Bucklin, SVP, Digital, Fox Sports, but one of the things we generally believe is, these are get to' jobs, not have to' jobs. I think the team feels that way. They embrace that as a mantra and are excited to show up every day. A lot of times, I'll try to get in early, and they'll be in there before me. Plus, the coffee is really good here.
THE USMNT ADVANCES!!!! @JimmyConrad, @SachaKljestan, @DamarcusBeasley, @CobiJones and @WarrenBarton2 discuss the match on #WCNow!https://t.co/4puUxp13wJ
FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) November 29, 2022
The game plan for FIFA World Cup NOW is to be live for a 20-minute prematch show and then return for a 30-minute postmatch show. During the Group Stage, that meant being live nearly around the clock. This World Cup is the first to host four matches in a single Group Stage day, versus the previous three. During the 2018 Men's World Cup (in Russia), Fox streamed one Twitter show per day. This requires a massive increase in inventory. Not to mention that during the Group Stage, there's just over one hour between matches, meaning that FIFA World Cup NOW is essentially live for the entire break between matches.
From left: Jimmy Conrad, Warren Barton, and Sacha Klejestan are regular on-air contributors to FIFA World Cup NOW.
For Bucklin, setting a strategy for such a busy schedule means keeping program rundowns simple: give everyone on the team - from on-air talent to behind-the-scenes crew - clear, defined goals that allow easy repetition.
We know exactly what we're going to do every day, he points out. It's a very simple formula. We try to be as creative within that formula as we can. You're going to share every single goal of every single match in the World Cup. When that happens, it's quick. You're going to focus your creativity on what the copy is going to be or how you're going to sell it on the website or the app, but you're not going to spend any time thinking about what you have to cut.
You can be more creative when you're in a smaller box, he continues. When you create that smaller box, simpler rundowns, simpler social-content plans, simpler editorial plans, you can be significantly more creative in that smaller box. You also become more efficient.
FIFA World Cup NOW - as well as live episodes of the daily State of the Union Podcast with Alexi Lalas and David Mosse - are overseen in Doha by Ricardo Perez-Selsky, head of production and tech operations, Fox Sports Digital. The operations side is also supported onsite by Head of Technical Operations John Marcus, Head of Production Operations Thomas Meason, Technical Op Chris Cheshire, Production Ops Carla Gutierrez and Erin Schechter, and Camera Operator Jeremy Benbow. The production side is led by Head of Digital and Social Production Nick Rago, who is working with producers Sean Sullivan and Ryan Bartlett.
Fox Sports Digital's Ricardo Perez-Selsky in the digital team's control room in Doha
Bucklin praises the efforts of Perez-Selsky, who joined Fox just over three years ago after a run at successful pop-culture-media company POPSUGAR. Perez-Selsky, Bucklin says, has probably produced more live social streams than anyone alive and has just completely transformed what we've done.
Bucklin adds, We are just so clean with Ric. When we're clean, we're confident, and, when we're confident, you can see it [on-air]. Our guys are having fun. They can always hear their producer cleanly in their ear. They can always see a clean program return so they know what's on the screen so they can talk to it. Ric has brought this level of experience and expertise to our operation, [taking] us to the next level. I've been here for seven years and have done in the realm of a thousand live digital streams, social streams, and I feel confident this is, by far, the best we've ever been.
Episodes of FIFA World Cup NOW regularly feature appearances by hosts Jimmy Conrad and Melissa Ortiz and former USMNT players Sacha Kljestan and Da
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Live From FIFA World Cup: Fox Sports' Digital Team Finds Big Success With Live Social Streams During the Group Stage, Fox's live Twitter show, FIFA World Cup NOW, pulled in 50 million views By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
