Live From FIFA Women’s World Cup: Fox Sports’ Live Social and Digital Content Plan Grows, Even Despite Time Difference With U.S. Market

Deeper integration of tech from Tagboard, Riedel brings added efficiency

FIFA World Cups are wildly exciting projects to work on. But, as with any major global international sports event, fruitful opportunities always bring a set of major challenges. There’s perhaps no bigger challenge for Fox Sports at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup than the time difference.

Fox Sports is producing its live social and digital show, World Cup NOW, from a set on the banks of Sydney Harbour. (All photos: Fox Sports)

With many of the matches in Australia and New Zealand happening during overnight hours in the U.S., it begged the question: would the aggressive, live-programming plan that Fox Sports Digital’s team flexed during the men’s FIFA World Cup in Doha last year even make sense this time around?

The answer was a resounding yes. Not only did Fox Sports Digital choose not to back off, but it decided to go even bigger and harder.

“We’re always going to stay true to live,” says Ricardo Perez-Selsky, senior director, digital production operations, Fox Sports.

😱🤣 @MelissaMOrtiz was every Colombia fan after that late winner @stuholden | @JimmyConrad | @CarliLloyd pic.twitter.com/qEtjIusFDD

— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) July 30, 2023

From a gorgeous set at the Hickson Road Reserve under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Fox Sports is back with its live social show, World Cup NOW, on Twitter (X) and the FOX Sports App, and is clipping and producing a wealth of original content, producing wall-to-wall coverage of the entire FIFA Women’s World Cup, and offering daily coverage on the status of the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT).

Perez-Selsky says that his group will actually produce more live hours in Sydney than it did in Doha. Nearly 1½ times as much, in fact. For some perspective, the Fox Sports Digital team produced a whopping 160 live shows exclusively for digital and social platforms at the men’s FIFA World Cup in Doha last year.

Multiple digital-first programs, including the State of the Union Podcast with Alexi Lalas, are broadcasting from the Sydney set.

Those added hours are coming in the form of more live halftime streams, as well as longer bridge shows between matches. During the men’s tournament, a post-match show might go 20 minutes followed by a dropout, before returning for a pre-match show 30 minutes or so later. During the Group Stage at the Women’s World Cup, the plan has been to, instead, stay on the air from match stoppage time into the first three minutes of the following match. That’s live for approximately 45 minutes straight.

The output is testament to not simply the tireless effort of the Fox Sports Digital team but the seamless integration between the broadcast and the digital sides of the house.

“Fox Soccer is truly one cross-platform family,” says Michael Bucklin, SVP, digital content, Fox Sports. “Whenever I say ‘we’ when referring to Fox Sports Digital, people like [Executive Producer, FIFA World Cup on Fox] David Neal or [President, Production and Operations,] Brad Zager are quick to correct me. It’s one big team.”

Key Enhancements to Tech Workflows

Besides the set’s beautiful backdrop of Sydney Harbour and the Sydney Opera House, along with a new LED wall, the Fox Sports Digital team is enjoying some significant improvements to its live workflows at this Women’s World Cup.

Instead of breaking between post-match and pre-match shows, as Fox Sports Digital did during coverage of the men’s 2022 FIFA World Cup in Doha, live streams stay live and bridge between matches. That puts shows live for between 45 minutes and a full hour.

A huge improvement from the effort in Doha comes in the form of deeper integration with two key vendor partners: Tagboard and Reidel Communications.

According to Perez-Selsky, deeper use of Tagboard not only streamlines graphical workflows but makes the on-air product fresher and more fun. All name fonts for every live stream are run directly through Tagboard; at the men’s World Cup, a designer had to whip up an individual .png file for any font appearing on screen. Going directly through Tagboard allows changes to be made on the fly and spur-of-the-moment on-screen fonts to be added more quickly.

“We have a Tagboard producer in-country with us this time,” says Perez-Selsky. “That has made a big difference. They’ve basically become like a secondary producer on the show because we have so much social-media integration to what we do. That has been a big improvement.”

Spearheading the Tagboard efforts are Associate Tagboard Producer Trip Westmoreland, as well as Tagboard Specialists Alex Hobbs, Nicolette Rojo, and Cole Weinstein.

Deploying Reidel Communications’ Bolero product has greatly improved comms on the set and, more important, with the Los Angeles-based remote team, headed by Fox Sports Senior Director, Digital Operations, Rachel Sollenberger. Previously, all real-time comms were done via Slack and Zoom.

“It just makes all of the difference,” says Perez-Selsky. “They’re pulling late-night shifts, obviously: starting their day at 1 a.m. and finishing it at 10 a.m. Having them on quick communication has been so great.”

Another tech enhancement this year is going fully wireless on microphones and IFBs for on-air talent on the set.

Playing key roles in the operational and technical efforts for Fox Sports Digital at this FIFA Women’s World Cup are Senior Manager, Technical Operations, John Marcus; Associate Manager, Technical Operations, Chris Cheshire; Senior Manager, Production Operations, Thomas Meason; Manager, Remote Production Operations, Carla Gutierrez; and Associate Manager, Production Operations, Erin Schechter.

Extra Efforts for USWNT

Naturally, Fox Sports, as U.S. rightsholder for the tournament, is putting added effort in programming surrounding matches featuring the U.S. Women’s National Team.

In addition to more talent on the set for live shows, FOX Sports App and FoxSports.com Managing Editor Kevin Jackson, two writers, and a social-media producer are embedded with the USWNT and follow it from match to match for as long as it remains in the field.

“The U.S. Women disproportionally rate,” says Bucklin. “When we cover the men’s tournament, there are the Messis, the Ronaldos, the Neymars, in addition to the U.S. team. When we cover the women’s tournament, the U.S. is the Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar. It’s where the vast majority of the interest for American audiences is. We try to stack our programming and put our best talent on those games and have fresh elements. We save a lot for our best for those matches because [the team does] so disproportionally rate.”

14 of 16 teams have booked their tickets to the knockout stage 🎟@AlexiLalas and @StatManMosse recap today’s FIFA Women’s World Cup action on State of the Union (Sponsored by @StateFarm #EnsuringCoverage) https://t.co/KMWamb9i7Q

— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) August 2, 2023

Bucklin believes that strong talent and a smart production team – spearheaded by Executive Director, Digital Production, Nick Rago — contribute to unparalleled coverage of the tournament. On-set talent Carli Lloyd, Heather O’Reilly, and Karina LeBlanc are alongside hosts Jimmy Conrad, Leslie Osborne, Melissa Ortiz, and Freya Coombe. On the production team, Senior Producer, Soccer, Fran Arthur; Senior Producer, Shows, Katherine Khordaji; and Producer, Shows, Sean Sullivan offer the live programming a high level of knowledge and sophistication. Senior Talent Producer Shawna Mauro and Talent Producer Justin Bond are also assisting with the various on-air personalities that cycle into live programming.

Feeding the Content Beast

Naturally, live is just one facet of a comprehensive digital and social effort. The time difference does lend itself to clipping of not only match highlights but also exciting and informative moments from the set of both linear and digital shows airing live throughout the night.

“[The challenge is,] how do we archive all of that live content and rerelease it during U.S. hours,” says Bucklin. “It’s also a hell of an opportunity because, when people wake up in the morning, they have this habit of reaching for their phone to turn off their alarm. We want to be there in that moment so that they have a notification or a piece of content that catches them up on the day here.”

Many of those highlights are churned out by Senior Manager, Postproduction, David Cox; Senior Video Editors Amanda Herman, Atheng Tejano, and Fernando Cardoso; Associate Highlights Producers Jack Coakley and Torin Westfall; and Highlights Specialists Bri Mellon, Antonio Rojas, Jack Srinivasan, Andrew Marini, Kasra Nosrati, and Marty Colasuonno.

Fox Sports Digital has also brought on a load of talent to focus exclusively on the packaging and posting of content to social-media platforms.

Senior Director, Content Integration, Sei Furutani is helping lead efforts across social, along with Producer, Soccer Social, Alex Calvert and Producer, Gambling, Chelsea Walker. Their team features Senior Manager, Digital Strategy, Connor Keisel; Senior Associate, Social, Jacob List; Manager, Content Integrations, Amanda Salazar; Associate Producer, Social, Polly Marino; Content Specialists, Social, Madison Peyser, Maddie McCarron, Tristin Clint, Alea Beamen, and Ivan De Jesus Lopez; Content Integration Specialists James Dimeo and Clarissa Hernandez; and Associate Designer, Social, D’ntrell Randolph.

Staffers dedicated to TikTok efforts are also deployed: Senior Associates, TikTok, Lisa Redmond (traveling with the USWNT) and Joe Scarpone and Associate, TikTok, Zack Crutcher.

A significant amount of graphic design is going into supplying Fox Soccer’s social channels. From imagery to quote graphics (affectionately referred to as “Quotoshops”), a wealth of static graphics are being produced by Manager, Design, Abby Treece; Senior Associate Designer Danny Devito; Associate Designer Carly Sarno; and Design Specialists Matthew Risinger and Lucas Durand. Jon Hill is serving as Fox Sports’ director of photography at the tournament.

Monetization of all of this content is being shepherded by SVP, Branded Content, Bryan McAleer; VP, Branded Content, Emilee Cavis; Manager, Brand Partnerships, Brandon Koretz; Associate Director, Brand Partnerships, Sam Grill; and Coordinators, Brand Partnerships, Kayla Shannon and Sarah Stahlberger.

Growth of Fox Sports Digital Team

It almost goes without saying that this level of resources for digital-content creation is rather rare for a major broadcaster. Pairing the effort at the Women’s World Cup with the recently opened digital-first studio at the Fox lot in Los Angeles yields a further example of the support Fox Sports is willing to provide to content exclusively for social-media platforms and the broadcaster’s own app and website.

Fox Sports is producing live social and digital content from two control rooms in Sydney.

“It makes me a little emotional when we talk about how far this group has come,” says Bucklin. “You walk onto this incredible set that we have today and think back to some of the setups of the past, which required a little bit more grind and a little bit more creativity to make it work. On our first day here, we had a bit of a miscommunication around hair and makeup, and we got a good laugh out of that because it’s the first time we’ve had hair and makeup at the World Cup. I think it has resulted in our group growing together and building trust with the rest of the company.”

For the team, it again goes back to that synergy between linear and digital and Fox Sports’ approach to functioning as one mega content team and not two units operating with different goals and priorities.

“We’ve been able to provide transparency into what we’re trying to do and what our North Star is,” says Perez-Selsky, “what the Digital mission is. We share that with broadcast and know we’re all on the same team. This is what we’re trying to do; how best can you help us out, and how can we help you?

“[Broadcast] are the ones with the resources really,” he continues. “If broadcast wasn’t here, we wouldn’t be here. It has become much more of a symbiotic relationship over the past four years. Every tentpole event that Digital is a big part of, our support just gets better and better.”

The combined effort in Australia/New Zealand and Los Angeles is loaded with Fox Sports Digital’s top behind-the-scenes talent, including key leadership from Executive Director, Cross-Platform Content, Jonathan Berger.

The digital and social efforts are also not entirely video. A lot of effort is being put into writing up content to update U.S. audiences on what happened overnight. Editorial Designers Beverly Lynch, Garrett Prentice, Meech Robinson, Bailey Wilson, and Ryan Muller are working with Senior Editors Bob Harkins, Sean Merriman, Brantley Watson, and Adam Maya; Editors Jonathan Raber, Jordan Dollenger, Sara Wagenveld, Victor Yoshida, Erica Davis, and Ryan Wilhite; and Writers Conor Roche, Robbie Stratakos, and Justin Morris.

Further contributing to that effort are Senior Editorial Manager Vik Chokshi, Senior Programming Editor Ed de La Fuente, Soccer Editor Christian Rivas, Deputy Editor Glenn Yoder, Senior Researcher Vikram Sairam, Trending Editor Austin Green, Editorial Alerts Manager Chris Lopez, Alerts Editors Simon Gibbs and Kara Evenson, Editorial Consultant Ben Grossman, Editorial Researcher David Albiani, and Marketing Specialist Eric Esteban.

The Digital Intern team comprises Alysia Burke, Catherine Eastman, Kristlyn Hetherington, Jack Daugherty, Tyler Bush, and Alex Wojdylak.