Fox FIFA Women's World Cup Exec Producer David Neal was up early Friday morning, before 6:00am PT in Vancouver, excited for what is set up to be the biggest day of soccer in Fox Sports’ history as the Women’s World Cup’s quarterfinals get under way. Neal planned to arrive at Fox’ studio in Vancouver around 7:00am to prepare for a day of soccer that starts at noon local time with an hour-long pregame that leads into the Germany-France match. Fox will produce another hour-long pregame before the U.S.-China match and will end the night with a 60-minute edition of “World Cup Tonight” on FS1. “It’s a full day, but the adrenaline is more than sufficient to get us all through it,” he said. THE DAILY caught up with Neal this morning to talk about how the tournament has progressed.
Q: How do the quarterfinals feel different from the group stage?
Neal: Our motto is that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Group play was a lot of long days and days with three or four games. It all hits you early when you’re fresh and rested. Now is the time when we’ve been here and on television almost every day for three-plus weeks. That’s a message that we reminded each other Thursday -- now is the most important time. The next ten days are why we’re all here. Friday is why we’re all here. It’s so amazing the feeling, camaraderie, the esprit de corps. Everybody can’t wait for today.
Q: What will be different about your production?
Neal: Starting Friday night, we will be attracting fans who have not watched much, if any, of the World Cup so far. The thing that separates an event like this from a success to a hit -- and we are poised to legitimately be a hit -- is when casual fans start watching. You never want viewers to come to a big event like this and feel like somehow they’ve stumbled onto a secret club where they don’t know the secret handshake. Instead, we want to make sure that we are accessible. We’re starting from a blank sheet of paper today. We’ll tell the stories that may have been told, in part, already during the World Cup. But we want fans who are coming for the first time to get up to speed right away and immerse them in the stories and help them understand the significance of Friday.
Q: What should viewers expect?
Neal: They should expect big, big event coverage. We know that the US-China game in Ottawa is a complete sellout. The atmosphere will be electric. They should expect that we will be every bit the equal of the action on the field in terms of the television programming that we turn in.
Q: How important is it for the U.S. to win Friday?
Neal: We hope to see the United States succeed and play in the semifinals next week. No question about it.
Q: What’s your best memory so far?
Neal: It’s the very first moment that we were on the air. The opening ran. There was Rob Stone’s voice setting the scene here in Canada followed by Taraji P. Henson’s amazing voice, reading that first show tease. That gave me a moment where I had to stop and catch my breath and appreciate what everybody has done to get us here.
