World Survived Most Successful World Cup…Ever

Content Insider #968A – Game On – Captions

By Andy Marken – andy@markencom.com

Source – “Failure Is Not an Option,” Loan Wolf Documentary Group

“You cannot operate in this room unless you believe you’re Superman, and whatever happens you’re capable of solving the problem.” – Gene Kranz, “Failure Is Not an Option,” Loan Wolf Documentary Group, 2003

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is now in the record books and was one that was a real test/learning experience for the broadcast technology industry.

The coverage of 48 teams competing in 104 matches in 16 cities in three countries produced 300+ hours of tense/disappointing/exhilarating entertainment for what FIFA estimated to be 2B plus football fans (legal broadcast, pirated) around the world.

Or, to put it a different way, one fourth of the folks on the planet.

In other words, nothing even comes close to moving the interest needle.

It also means coming up short in calling and covering the matches wasn’t an option.

The key concern of fans everywhere was that they see/experience the play with as minimum amount of delay as possible or gawd forbid, have the stream interrupted.

To level the playing pitch (so to say), they deployed a full range of officiating technology including an even more enhanced VAR (video assistant referee) that is supposed to reduce/eliminate controversies and make the game more fair. As long as it makes “the right” call.

Then there was SAOT (Semi-automatic offside technology) that uses limb-tracking data from multiple cameras (and yes AI) to generate near instantaneous offside decisions.

Lenovo’s AI-enabled referee body cams gave folks opportunities to see the play on the pitch up close and personal in addition to enabling them to check/scream at the calls.

We were impressed at Lenovo’s key support throughout the contests with a herd of mainframes, notebooks everywhere and AI football intelligent tools.

Source – FIFA

The most interesting technology for ardent and casual footballers was the connected ball technology, sensors embedded in the match ball that communicates with the VAR system at 500 data points a second, connected to the centralized VOR (video operations room) that again produces greater decision-making consistency.

Despite the technology, people still called the shots.

This year, referees handed out 14 red cards (immediate ejection and at least one game suspension) for an extreme act – violent, serious foul – or something as ungentlemanly as spitting, biting, offensive language, or covering your mouth during an altercation.

Or a yellow card for things like reckless tackles, persistent fouling, wasting time or arguing with the official.

It certainly keeps the game more professional and healthier compared to its American counterpart.

And boy, they weren’t afraid to use those cards – 14 red cards in 2026 which was more than the two prior World Cups combined.

But the real technology test ensured that everyone everywhere saw the matches in real time with little or no time delay.

Source – IEEE

It was a master class in broadcast capture, workflow and delivery of action in 16 stadiums across four time zones for 39 days that culminated in the final at the New York New Jersey Stadium on July 19.

The FIFA World Cup has always been the proving ground for broadcast innovation from HD, UHD production; IP networking and HDR workflows.

This year’s was no exception including a fully decentralized, software-defined production on a global scale and all of the technologies tested and used at World Cup 2026 will undoubtedly be used across all sports broadcasting as well as live events and the entire media/content creation industries.

Due largely to skills shortages and the massive production demands/cost, FIFA and HBS (Host Broadcast Services) came up with a remarkable hub and spoke solution.

Source – HBC

The center piece for the coverage was IBC (International Broadcast Centre) headquartered in Houston, TX., that delivered every match in UHD HDR and generated about 9,000 hours of content.

The operation included a combination of software-defined processing, private cloud architecture, SMPTE ST2110 networking, JPEG XS contributing workflows, remote operations and centralized production.

Thanks to a very robust capture, production, distribution set-up and Verizon’s global 5G network, folks didn’t experience the ‘roar before the score” from social media or people celebrating before they saw it on their big screen.

That was no easy task.

Each venue had a network capacity of about 600Gbps delivered on two 100Gbps paths, supported by three redundant routes to provide a very robust transport infrastructure.

The IP-centric architecture and workflow was built around Adobe Premiere Pro which supported everything from ingest through final delivery. That enabled the IBC staff to work efficiently and effectively in near real-time despite being thousands of miles away from the action and still work with a wide range of footage, archival materials and evolving event progress.

Source – IBCTours.tv

At most sporting events producers, directors and the core event production team were located at the individual venue to handle everything.  But for this monstrosity, they stayed on-site along with their key specialty teams.

The monster was fed by 48 production teams spread across Canada, Mexico and the US to focus on capturing all of the pre, post and game action/activity.

Source – Sports Business Journal

All of the key activities including replay operations, graphics control, audio mixing and camera shading were all performed remotely from the IBC including six dedicated galleries that supported graphics, replay, audio and shading workflows.

Seven production teams supported continuous coverage in German, Spanish, French, Dutch and English.

Okay, to be honest, not everything was done in Houston.  

Source – LinkedIn

There was also a Non-Live Hub in England where about 400 people worked with 126 edit suites to mix formats and content ranging from shortform social clips, TikTok and YouTube specific cuts.

Longer highlight packages also served the needs of digital services and broadcasters in Britian, Europe and services in other countries that wanted to round out or deliver unique aspects, add color and feed just enough of the games/activities to entice folks to their total event coverage on the linear/streaming channels.

But ultimately, especially in the US, it’s all about the money.

Source – Datawrapper

And FIFA has learned a lot about that over the years with this year’s coverage including a new commercial partnership structure with top-tier global partners visible at all of the events. You may have noticed Adidas and Coke logos on the LED walls around the pitch along with ads from Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, Bank of America and Unilever.

Oh yes, the stadium’s “IDs” were draped – Levi Stadium, MetLife, SoFi, Estadio Akron, BMO Field and the others – and were simply Boston, Dalas, Los Angeles, Toronto, Mexico City, Estadio Monterrey and so forth stadium.

But people in the respective host countries/cities knew.

FIFA took in about $4B in broadcast media rights, an increase of about 22 percent over the 2022 tournament thanks to the events being held in North America and expanded interest in the Middle East.

Source – Wikipedia

Broadcast rights in the US went to Fox Sports with Telemundo having Spanish-language rights while Peacock handled streaming.

Canadian fans watched the play on the pitch over Bell Media, TSN channels while RDS handled French-language coverage.

In Mexico, the rights were split between Televisa and TV Aztec.

In Europe, regulations mandated free-to-air coverage so people enjoyed the play over their PSBs (public service broadcasters), but FIFA did sell some of the events to pay-TV channels and streamers

BBC and ITV shared distribution in the UK while BeIN Sports and M6 fed the French fans.

In Germany, the primary rights holder was telco Deutsche Telekom provided feeds to ARD and ZDF.

In Italy and Spain, coverage was shared by DAZN working with RAI, RTVE and Moviestar+.

Fans in Brazil and Chile were able to get in on the excitement over Chilevisión and ClaroVTR in 4K thanks to their implementation of Denmark’s Pixop technology which transforms 1080i HD feed into 4K UHD feeds in real time.

That’s possibly the only area able to consistently watch stuff in 4K.

Global reach is still “a work in progress” for FIFA because broadcasters in Japan, India and China weren’t happy with the asking price and unfavorable kick-off times.  But at the last minute, they “negotiated” deals with Chinas CCTV, India’s ZEE and a consortium of public/commercial broadcasters headed by DANZ.

Of course, there were also the unauthorized streaming (pirate) services that “borrowed” the coverage for hundreds of millions of fans across the Middle East, South/Southeast Asia and Latin America–heck, the world, who were willing to watch the action on the pitch despite the possibility of their adding viruses and illegal ads to their viewing.

Hey, a guy (or gal) has to do whatever he/she has to do to watch the most important sport in the world.

Okay, to justify the increased broadcast cost, FIFA came up with some new rules – the hydration break and picture-in-picture creative “opportunities.”

Source – FIFA

Now, in defense of the move, players are constantly on the move on the pitch throughout the contest which seems to be as much of endurance as skill: but jeez, in every other sport, guys/gals get about as much rest as play time when they’re out there,

In addition, players and venue spectators “enjoyed” some record heat this year but still, they ticked off hundreds (thousands?) of purist fans.

Still, they gave Fox, Telemundo, Peacock and any rights holder that wanted to a chance to recover some of their rights fees through the beauty of advertising.

Sure, it was strictly a follow the money move for some and in the US that translated into $250M, so don’t expect it to disappear in 2030 or going forward because FIFA and soccer are expanding in both reach and popularity.

But in countries that restrict ads by regulation or have rules that regulate how many commercials can be aired in a 60-minute period, they’ll stick with the stadium feeds which actually means FIFA’s global, regional partners like Adidas and Coke will have more time to create viewer impressions as the cameras scanned the LED walls surrounding the pitch.

If you’re like most fans and FIFA, World Cup 2026 is in the record books and you’re looking forward to seeing what broadcast/technical advances are used in 2030.

Source – Wikipedia

Folks in Spain, Portugal, Morocco and heck, all of Europe/North Africa, are already counting the days.

And since 2030 will mark a century for FIFA, they’ll also be having centurion matches in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay to return the game to an even more global footprint and an even more complex (and expensive) production. 

The competition has already been expanded to 44 days and there’s serious talks about expanding the competition to 64 teams, up from today’s 48 teams.

Of course, with that and the increased popularity of soccer, FIFA’s plan to package English/Spanish languages together and plans for other creative packages (opportunities); Fox/NBCU (current US rights holder) can expect some serious competition from folks like Netflix, Disney, YouTube and Amazon.

Who knows, Apple may be considering entering a bid because they’ve been actively testing their iPhone 17 Pro Max units at a couple of MLS (Major League Soccer) events this year along with Blackmagaic Camera Apps to capture the action across the pitch as well as at net level.

It sure would make 2.5B iPhone and Mac users happy, especially the younger generations who can’t seem to live, go anywhere without them.

Hey, something this big and global provides a common ground for people to agree on one thing even though they disagree on who should be/should have been the ultimate crown holder.

Source – Lone Wolf Documentary Group

It may be the one thing everyone on the planet can agree on for at least 44 days and maybe, just maybe, beyond.

Then we could all share in the wins (and losses) and agree with Gene Kranz in Failure Is Not an Option when he said, “We had done the impossible. The human factor had carried the day.”

We know what you’re thinking, and our friends will constantly say we’re a half-full guy; but jeez, we have to start somewhere and it might as well be with futbol or soccer or whatever you want to call it.

It’s not just a game…it’s more important than that!

Andy Marken – andy@markencom.com – is an author of more than 1000 articles on industry trends and observations concerning the media & entertainment, consumer industries. He is an internationally recognized marketing/communications consultant with a broad range of technical and industry expertise in the film/content production/distribution fields as well as storage. He also has extensive relationships with business, industry trade press, online media and industry analysts/consultants.