When Fox landed the rights to the FIFA World Cup in 2011, there were fears and worries that the network would not provide the gravitas that ESPN had given soccer especially after the 2010 men’s and 2011 Women’s World Cups. But now after the 2015 Women’s World Cup, we see that Fox can treat the event with respect and not patronize fans.
Fox brought in former NBC Sports executive and producer David Neal who worked under former Emperor Dick Ebersol. Neal’s experience on big events such as the Olympics and multiple Super Bowls came into play in planning the Women’s World Cup. Neal developed a production team that produced features and shoulder programming for the event that could rival NBC on any given day.
In addition, the on-air team stepped up very well and handled the tonnage of air time on both the pre and postgame shows.
Let’s take a look at the on-air elements for the 2015 World Cup.
HOSTS
Rob Stone showed that he can handle a large-scale event. While Bob Ley has been Mr. Soccer on television in the United States for many years, Stone proved that he can be the soccer host for a new generation. As the main game host, Stone set the proper tone for each match as well as getting all of his analysts involved. With five people on the set, it’s not easy to get everyone the time, but Stone managed to get it done. Stone had very good chemistry with Alexi Lalas, Ariane Hingst and Kelly Smith. He was a natural and comfortable fit on the main set. Expect Rob to be the main host for the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France. He’s earned it.
Kate Abdo was the delightful host of the late night FIFA Women’s World Cup Tonight. On loan from Sky Sports in the United Kingdom, Abdo had a cast of thousands including Eric Wynalda, Leslie Osbourne, Monica Gonzalez, Christine Latham, Ari Hingst, Angela Hucles, Kelly Smith, Grant Wahl, Aly Wagner, Heather Mitts and others. Most of the time, Abdo had a set cast, but other times she had rotating analysts. Each night, she handled the show beautifully and got all of the analysts involved. There were times when she rolled her eyes at Wynalda (more on him later), but overall, Abdo did a very good job in hosting the late night show. She’s earned the opportunity to return in Russia in 2017 or even sooner if Fox chooses.
STUDIO ANALYSTS
Because there were so many analysts, we have to categorize them according to the different studio shows.
FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP TODAY
With four analysts, the set was quite crowded, but with an hour pregame in most instances, there was enough time for Rob Stone to get everyone involved with the feeling without them being monkey-wrenched into each segment. Fox found Ariane Hingst who had played on Germany’s two Women’s World Cup Championship teams and Kelly Smith of England who was the country’s leading goal-scorer in the World Cup. Both were excellent in discussing strategy, key plays and discussing their experience in playing in the tournament.
Hingst was particularly wonderful in her light trolling of the U.S., but she wasn’t obnoxious and she always had a smile. Her analysis was very good and on-point. And she never wavered in her time on the set.
Smith the only one to be in double digits with her predictions ending at 13-3. She was good in explaining plays and set pieces. Bringing her and Hingst to Russia would be a good move for Fox.
What can we say about Alexi Lalas? We didn’t like him last year on the ESPN set and there were times this year when he was yelling at the American people and pounding his fist on the desk. Last year with ESPN, Lalas was rather stiff and stale. With Fox, he was more animated. He offered some stronger opinions and more in lockstep with his partners. Maybe it was working with Rob Stone or working with women, but Lalas was better in 2015 than he was in 2014.
Heather Mitts was o.k., but wasn’t as strong in offering opinions as Hingst or Smith. I expected more from her as she played on the 2011 World Cup team with many of the current players, but she did not get off to a strong start and did not finish strong. She improved a bit during the Group Stage and some periods during the Knockout round, but overall, she was the weakest link in this cast.
FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP TONIGHT
This show mostly had Eric Wynalda, Leslie Osbourne, Monica Gonzalez and Ariane Hingst as the main analysts. Angela Hucles, Aly Wagner, Christine Latham, Kelly Smith, Dr. Joe Machnik, Sports lllustrated’s Grant Wahl and Heather Mitts also made appearances during the month-long tournament. We’ll focus on the main cast.
The cast got off to a weak start in discussing Hope Solo’s domestic violence past, but it got stronger as the shows went along. I’m not sure why it was, but Osbourne said “For me?” so much, I considered starting a drinking game for every time “For me?” was uttered. Then I noticed that Wagner and Mitts said it too, so instead of getting extremely drunk every night, I decided to ring a bell, but that made my dog bark, so I stopped counting.
In any event, Gonzalez, Osbourne and Hingst offered some good insights into the women’s game and handled discussions on the day’s issues quite well.
FIFA Women’s World Cup Tonight was modeled directly after ESPN’s World Cup Tonight down to its relaxed lounge set, video opens and theme, but what was missing was the chemistry of the ESPN analysts. Still, Fox’s incarnation worked quite well from the features, analysis and breakdown of plays.
In addition, Fox tapped Fox Sports Live’s Jay Onrait and Dan O’Toole to play the Men in Blazers comedic relief role and for the most part, their “Jay and Dan Don’t Go to the FIFA Women’s World Cup” worked well especially when they talked about towns in their native Canada.
FEATURES
David Neal assembled a team to produce features on Abby Wambach, Megan Rapinoe, Carli Lloyd, Japan’s 2011 Championship team and on the German World Cup tradition. They put a human face on players on whom you weren’t familiar. And they were done so well, you could have thought they were produced by NBC’s Olympic team.
Fox’s last feature showing Wambach talking about what the winning the World Cup would mean to her was powerful. Fox did it without music, without interviewers, just with Wambach talking to the camera. It was great television.
ERIC WYNALDA
We are giving Wynalda his own category because some of his actions during this Women’s World Cup had to be seen to be believed. Fox relegated him to the late night show where he would do the least damage, but he still managed to pull a General Sherman-like destruction on the show throughout the month.
Whether it was interrupting his partners time and time again, or hinting at arguments with his fellow analysts off-camera causing them to roll their eyes or shoot off deathstares in his direction, Wynalda seemed to clash with host Kate Abdo, analysts Leslie Osbourne, Christine Latham or anyone who came into his path.
There was also some strange behavior including making out with a sculpted wooden bear, overgushing on interviews with Carli Lloyd and Kelley O’Hara to the point where it was borderline creepy. Then on Sunday and Monday, offering champagne to players in an attempt to get them tipsy on the set.
Not sure what Wynalda was trying to accomplish with all this, but it was rather strange television to say the least. Despite his standoffish behavior, Fox is rather high on Wynalda and we’ll continue to see him on the CONCACAF Gold Cup this week.
GAME BROADCAST TEAMS
It was good to have JP Dellacamera back on a World Cup as the main broadcaster. The voice of soccer in the U.S. in the 1990’s into the early 2000’s, JP saw his role diminished on ESPN to the point where he was not on TV and called the World Cup on radio. He never complained publicly and when Fox came calling after Gus Johnson stepped down from being the main soccer voice, it just seemed a natural fit.
JP has always let his partners shine and he did that again in a three-person booth with Tony DiCicco and Cat Whitehill. They jelled into a very good team with DiCicco and Whitehill both on top of trends and the ability to first guess.
After JP, DiCicco and Whitehill, John Strong and Danielle Slaton and Jenn Hildreth and Kyndra de St. Aubin were the best announcing teams for the Fox networks. Justin Kutcher and Aly Wagner were also good. Glenn Davis and Christine Latham called a few games and Latham had a tendency to yell, but that might have been the venue causing her to increase her volume.
REPORTERS
It was a good decision to embed Jenny Taft with the U.S. Women as she was able to get interviews and occasionally break news. However, in interviews with Hope Solo, there were no questions about her domestic violence issues.
Fox tapped Grant Wahl as its soccer insider and he provided some interesting features on FIFA and the atmosphere of the World Cup.
Julie Stewart-Binks traveled across her native Canada to cover games. She will do it again in the U.S. for the Gold Cup starting this week.
Overall, Fox’s first effort on the World Cup was a good one. It helped that the U.S. Women went all the way into the final and provided record ratings for both Fox Sports 1 and the Fox Television Network.
Fox has reason to be proud of the entire team that worked from the network’s base of Vancouver to the men and women who were at the game sites. There are things on which to improve for the men’s World Cup in Russia three years from now, but they’re minor compared to Fox’s U.S. Open team which has many things to work on. But overall, the World Cup is in good hands and Fox has treated the event with the respect that fans have been yearning for since ESPN did an editorial change in 2010 and gave soccer the treatment it duly deserves.
Fox gets a strong B+ for its 2015 Women’s World Cup coverage.
