Ian Wright and Roy Keane have lauded ITV’s World Cup studio as the broadcaster revealed their stunning Brooklyn base for the tournament.
ITV will be going head-to-head with the BBC in the battle of the World Cup broadcasters, with both taking different approaches to their studio location.
While the BBC took the controversial decision to base their coverage from back home in Salford, ITV have instead taken their operation over to the United States.
Viewers were given a first look at the ITV studio on the eve of the tournament as England faced Costa Rica in their final warm-up match.
Those tuning in to the match, which saw kick-off delayed following storms in Florida, were greeted to a stunning view of the New York skyline.
‘Welcome to our New York loft apartment, home for six weeks of coverage of the World Cup,’ said Mark Pougatch, ITV anchor.
ITV have revealed their studio for the World Cup, with a stunning view of the New York skyline
Ian Wright lauded the studio as being ‘unbelievable’ and how it ‘should be’ for the World Cup
‘We hope you will love this view as much as we do, a view of the buildings of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridge.
‘You are thinking it must be AI; I promise you it is real.’
Keane and Wright both praised the location, with the latter lauding ITV’s decision to invest in a grand studio to fit the occasion of the World Cup.
‘Amazing, fantastic,’ Keane said.
Wright added: ‘It’s amazing, unbelievable set. It’s the World Cup, it should be this, it should be grand, massive.’
Earlier this week, Keane had admitted that a rivalry exists between the two broadcasters and their punditry teams heading into the tournament.
‘The rivalry between the BBC and ITV pundits is a bit strange, but I think it’s good that there’s a bit of tension,’ Keane said on Sky Bet’s Road To America mini-series.
‘I think you need a bit of competition. Let’s not kid ourselves, there is definitely tension. Even from pundits who work with other pundits.
‘The BBC might have the younger pundits, but they’re two completely different shows.
‘The people who work for the BBC and ITV in the background, they are about numbers, and maybe that filters through to the pundits.’
The BBC have invested heavily in a state-of-the-art studio, which features a giant panoramic screen
The backdrop of the BBC studio can be altered to display each of the host cites at the tournament
In contrast to ITV, the BBC’s coverage will be led from a state-of-the-art studio in Salford, with the corporation taking the decision to save millions of licence fee money.
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‘Right now, I’m incredibly happy with it,’ the BBC’s director of sport Alex Kay-Jelski told Daily Mail Sport. ‘To have what would probably be an extra couple of hundred people out there – and that’s before you build a studio – you’re talking millions.
‘If I was standing here saying everything is going to be done from a studio in Dallas, you would rightly be saying to me, “How can you justify that expense?”.
‘I don’t think the answer from a financial sustainable point of view is to say everyone can go. I don’t think that is a very clever way of me to spend licence fee money.’
A giant LED screen in the BBC’s World Cup studio can be changed to alter the backdrop, allowing for computer-generated 360-degree cityscapes for the 16 host venues.
The cityscapes will have variants for day, dusk and night, as well as dynamic weather effects.
After the quarter-final stage, as Daily Mail Sport revealed in December, the BBC could yet relocate to the United States for the final stages of the tournament.
The broadcaster does have commentary teams in the stadium for the majority of the 54 matches being broadcast live, with reporters embedded with the England and Scotland camps, and other journalists dotted around North America chasing big stories.
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