The will base its main 2026 World Cup studio at Media City Studios in Salford, a decision the corporation says is driven by cost and carbon savings. Gabby Logan will front the first broadcast from the set on Friday 12 June.
director of sport Alex Kay-Jelski said the Salford plan was the sensible choice and argued it would not be a clever use of licence fee money to send everyone to Dallas. He said the coverage is expected to cut carbon emissions by 19% compared with the last World Cup in Qatar and save millions in costs.
The move gives the broadcaster a fixed base for a tournament that will be spread across three countries and 16 host cities, with roughly 200 people working on the coverage from Media City Studios and the Sport offices next door. Inside the 4,700 sq ft HQ3 studio, a 5mx3m LED screen will show the host cities the matches are coming from, matching their time of day and weather on screen, while a floor screen will be used for analysis.
The is also trying to make one production centre serve several audiences at once. It will produce material for broadcast and digital platforms, including YouTube and TikTok, from the same campus, and it will deliver every match in HDR for the first time. Elements of the World Cup set-up are due to be reused in a new Match Of The Day studio next season.
That still leaves one piece of the on-air puzzle open. Logan, Micah Richards, Wayne Rooney and Olivier Giroud are lined up for the first game between Canada and Bosnia-Herzegovina, while Logan, Richards and Rooney are due back for the final on 19 July, with the last pundit to be decided by who reaches the showpiece fixture. Kay-Jelski said there had been no problems getting talent to the UK, even as Richards also works in the United States for other projects.
For the, the choice of Salford is more than a studio move. It is a bet that the cheapest, least duplicated version of a World Cup operation is also the one that will best serve viewers, even when the tournament itself is scattered across an entire continent.
