Fox Sports’ ‘Cathedral of Football’ is ready for EURO 2024-Copa America

Football 24 hours a day.

This summer, for a few days, American football fans will be able to attend the match Nice game from early morning until late in the evening, as the time difference between UEFA EURO 2024 in Germany and CONMEBOL Copa America 2024 in the United States creates a long weekend of four or five consecutive matches per day.

The crossover begins at 8 a.m. Eastern on June 20, with the day’s highlights seeing England take on Denmark in Frankfurt and Spain taking on Italy in Gelsenkirchen in a repeat of the semis -finals of the 2020 European Championship, before Argentina and Canada kick off the Copa America at Mercedez-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

Although it seems like the perfect day for football fans, for broadcaster Fox Sports it’s a major undertaking that requires a lot of preparation.

Zac Kenworthy, Fox Sports VP of Production, said: “We have spent months now making sure lots of rehearsals are done, so the production team and crew know exactly the rhythm of these days. »

Kenworthy says the most games Fox Sports has played before is 64 for previous World Cups, so the 78 games spread across the two tournaments is the most the network has broadcast.

But it allowed Fox Sports to expand its roster, bringing in former Denmark goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel and former England striker Daniel Sturridge. Kenworthy says that with “massive firepower” and with everything revolving around the Fox studio in Los Angeles, with all the resources in one place, managing work schedules is a little easier. He says production staff will actually be replaced during a “line change” to keep everyone cool when they get up at 2 a.m. Pacific Time for the start of the work day.

The broadcaster has also gone to great lengths to transform its studio into what it calls a “Cathedral of Football”.

Rather than a green screen, the studio is using XR LED screens which Fox first discovered while filming the Star Wars film The Mandalorian. These screens can create a more realistic environment for the people being filmed, but can also be virtually expanded using virtual reality.

Zac Fields, senior vice president of technology and innovation, says the idea for the cathedral-like virtual studio came from a chance meeting with an architect while traveling in New Zealand . That architect, Damien van Brandenburg, actually helped Fox Sports design the studio using a 3D rendering engine.

Fields says that if you were to actually build the virtual environment in real life, it would take up more than 50,000 square feet and that virtual cameras are used to take the audience from room to room, making the studio segments more interactive.

One of this studio’s analysts for the 2024 European Championship is former US national team player Stu Holden. As a football fan, he is “super excited” about the “marathon” that will take place in the next five or six weeks.

As well as being in the studio for the Euros, Holden will be in the stadiums to co-commentate the US matches and other big Copa America matches. He says that in the studio, analysts can only really cover “the top of the iceberg,” but that for game coverage, it’s possible to peel back the layers and tell a different type of story, which requires an even deeper level of player research. ‘ history, styles and trends.

Holden sees Portugal as a team that could surprise some people at the Euros and says he likes what head coach Roberto Martinez has done there. He also expects Argentina to be one of the finalists in the Copa America.

In some ways, this summer feels like a dress rehearsal for the 2026 World Cup, especially since the United States is hosting the Copa America.

While Fox Sports has covered American soccer stadiums extensively, major tournaments like the Copa America are slightly different. Kenworthy says that while for the NFL, Fox Sports is often the sole broadcaster, for big tournaments they are competing for space with multiple broadcasters and multiple commentary booths. In this regard, the Copa America will provide them with vital information on how best to settle into the stadium during the 2026 World Cup.

Holden says these tournaments will be like a mini World Cup. He says being at the stadium gets the adrenaline pumping like when he was playing and that “for us, honestly, these tournaments are what it’s all about.”