Standing inside HQ3 at MediaCity Studios during the FIFA World Cup 2026, it quickly became apparent that BBC Sport had reached another milestone in its virtual production journey.

On one side of the studio, presenters and pundits could look out across a succession of meticulously recreated North American city skylines. Under their feet, an LED floor became a tactical analysis space. Beyond the physical set, extended reality graphics filled the studio with new opportunities for storytelling.

For viewers, it was simply another polished BBC Sport presentation. For the broadcaster and MediaCity Studios (formerly Dock10), however, the studio represented something far more significant.

“It’s one thing creating and rendering the [city backgrounds] on a computer. But once you’re in the studio you have to consider every camera angle, every single shot and which buildings people are going to recognise. That became a significant project in itself.”

Gone was the familiar green-screen approach that had underpinned much of BBC Sport’s major tournament and domestic presentation over the past decade. In its place sat a sophisticated LED volume and XR workflow that had taken more than a year to develop, brought together in little more than two weeks before transmission began, and required broadcasters, designers, engineers and technology partners to rethink long-established production workflows.

But the project wasn’t simply about replacing one technology with another. It was about demonstrating that a fundamentally different approach to studio presentation could enhance editorial storytelling and create a platform capable of evolving long after the final whistle.

The FIFA World Cup may be over for another four years, but the LED story is only just beginning. The lessons learned throughout the HQ3 project will now inform the next evolution of Match of the Day, ensuring USA, Canada and Mexico 2026 leaves a legacy that stretches well beyond a single tournament.

BBC Sport has steadily embraced virtual production in recent years, perhaps most notably with its mixed reality presentation studio for UEFA Euro 2024 in Berlin. The World Cup 2026 project represented the next stage in that evolution, replacing chroma-key production with an LED volume complemented by extended reality graphics that extend far beyond the physical boundaries of the studio itself.

For John Murphy, design director at BBC Sport (pictured below), it was about creating a more convincing, more flexible and ultimately more engaging presentation environment.

“The backdrop and the different city environments were a huge feature of the project,” he explains.

Rather than presenting in front of a green wall, presenters are surrounded by the finished environment. Looking through the LED wall reveals detailed 3D recreations of New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City and other host cities, while XR graphics occupy the wider studio space.

Creating those environments proved considerably more challenging than simply producing attractive renders.

“It’s one thing creating and rendering them on a computer,” says Murphy, “but once you’re in the studio you have to consider every camera angle, every single shot and which buildings people are going to recognise. That became a significant project in itself.”

BBC Sport wanted a presentation space capable of supporting multiple editorial styles throughout the tournament. A hydraulic desk allows presenters to move between seated discussion and standing presentation, while an LED floor transforms into a tactical analysis area, enabling pundits to illustrate formations and patterns of play directly beneath their feet.

The reflective LED floor itself builds on lessons learned during Euro 2024, once again using ROE Visual panels to create an extension of the virtual environment.

“We took inspiration from what worked so well in Berlin and adapted it,” Murphy explains. “The LED floor allows us to display tactical formations and analysis directly beneath the presenters.”

Even the city skylines evolve throughout the day. Separate daytime, dusk, night-time and overcast versions of each environment were created, with the physical lighting inside HQ3 carefully matched to each virtual backdrop. The objective was subtle but important.

Rather than presenting from what felt like a static virtual set, BBC Sport wanted viewers to experience an environment that changed naturally throughout the day, reinforcing the illusion that the presenters really were on a balcony overlooking the 16 cities hosting football’s biggest tournament.

The move from green screen to LED also transformed the on-screen experience for the presenters and pundits themselves.

Without chroma key, talent are less restricted. “Presenters can wear whatever they like, and they can actually see the environment they’re working in,” says Murphy. “That’s been extremely popular with the talent.

“From a creative point of view, it simply feels real. The environment is physically there, and I think that makes presenters feel much more comfortable, which comes across on screen.”

For MediaCity Studios, however, the transition represented something equally significant. According to Andy Waters, head of studios (pictured below), the move to LED wasn’t a revolutionary leap but the culmination of years of investment in virtual production technologies and knowledge.

“Together with the BBC, we were among the first to adopt game engine technology back in 2018,” he says. “It isn’t just one or two people who understand how to use it. We now have teams of engineers, virtual studio operators, lighting directors and directors who have all developed experience working with game engine technology.

“If we’d tried to do this seven or eight years ago, it would have been a huge leap. Today, it simply felt like the right time.”

That experience proved invaluable.

The move to LED required new workflows and additional training, but the fundamentals were already in place. Teams on both sides were familiar with camera tracking, real-time rendering and virtual production pipelines. Rather than forcing BBC Sport and MediaCity Studios to abandon existing ways of working, LED became the natural next step in a technological journey they had already begun.

Delivering an ambitious vision

Although planning for the project stretched back more than a year, the physical implementation happened at remarkable speed.

“In reality, this was still an empty studio just two and a half weeks before we went on air,” recalls Murphy.

“To bring everything together in that time: the LED volume, the physical set, the graphics systems and all of the technology. That was a huge undertaking.”

Like many modern virtual production projects, the World Cup studio was the product of a broad technology ecosystem.

ROE Visual supplied the LED wall and floor that formed the centrepiece of the set, while Pixotope powered the graphics system driving the virtual environment and Mo-Sys provided the camera tracking technology underpinning the production.

At AE Live, Chris Izatt, director of innovation & virtual, and Peter Wedderburn, senior environment artist, led the implementation of the virtual production system and developed the Unreal Engine build that brought BBC Sport’s ambitious vision to life.

MediaCity Studios’ head of innovation Richard Wormwell and his engineering team played a central role in integrating the various technologies, while Andy Underhill, head of operations at BBC Sport, oversaw the technical implementation.

Creatively, Murphy worked alongside BBC Sport’s in-house design team, building on concepts created by designer and animator Paul Kavanagh, whose work on Euro 2024 provided the foundation for the World Cup project. At MediaCity Studios, lead virtual studio developer Andy Elliott and colleagues were instrumental in integrating the virtual environments and helping bring the North American skylines to life. Murphy also praised the important role played by BBC Sport programme director Colm Harty. 

“At no point was there any finger-pointing. Whenever we encountered technical challenges, the attitude was simply, ‘Let’s work this out.’ We always felt like we were one team trying to deliver the best possible result.”

It was, by necessity, a highly collaborative undertaking. “Ideally you try to keep the number of parties involved as small as possible,” Murphy admits. “But because of the timescales and the scale of what we were trying to achieve, there were a lot of people involved.”

For Waters, the success of the project owed less to technology than to relationships.

“Although this was technically a facilities-client relationship, it never felt like one,” he says. “Every conversation we’ve had has been about solving the project together.

“At no point was there any finger-pointing. Whenever we encountered technical challenges, the attitude was simply, ‘Let’s work this out.’ We always felt like we were one team trying to deliver the best possible result.”

That collaborative ethos extended well beyond engineering. Production teams, designers, graphics specialists, lighting directors, virtual production operators and studio crews all found themselves working to an immovable transmission deadline, with every discipline dependent upon the others.

The result was a technically ambitious studio project that succeeded not because of any single technology, but because every contributor understood the importance of making those technologies work together.

More than impressive pictures

The visual impact of BBC Sport’s World Cup studio attracted plenty of attention – as did the corporation’s decision not to send presenters to the USA, Canada and Mexico until the latter stages of the tournament. But both Murphy and Waters are keen to stress that the project shouldn’t be judged solely on how it looked.

For Waters, picture quality deserves to sit alongside the virtual production story. “The quality of the pictures has been exceptional,” he says. “Without making direct comparisons, I genuinely think we’ve produced some of the best studio pictures on television during the tournament.”

Achieving that standard required considerably more than installing an LED wall.

BBC Sport’s commitment to producing in UHD and HDR for BBC iPlayer added another layer of complexity to an already ambitious production, demanding close collaboration between engineering, lighting and graphics teams to ensure the virtual and physical worlds blended seamlessly.

“It’s important to recognise the people behind that,” says Murphy. “HDR adds another layer of technical complexity, but it’s another example of everyone working together to solve those challenges.”

That attention to detail extended to almost every aspect of the studio. Carefully programmed lighting ensured the physical set always matched the virtual time of day beyond the LED wall. Hidden fans concealed within the planting gently stirred leaves and foliage, introducing subtle movement that reinforced the illusion that presenters were standing outdoors overlooking the tournament host cities.

Few viewers would consciously notice those touches. That, arguably, was precisely the point. The success of virtual production often lies not in what audiences see, but in what they don’t question.

If BBC Sport’s World Cup studio represented the culmination of years of technical development, it also marked the beginning of something else. Neither Murphy nor Waters views what they achieved in HQ3 as a finished product. Instead, they describe it as the foundation upon which future workflows will be built.

“This was never about experimenting on our biggest tournament,” says Murphy. “It was about developing a workflow and a way of working that we can build on.”

That philosophy will become apparent over the coming months as BBC Sport begins incorporating lessons from the World Cup into Match of the Day, which is produced in HQ7, within the same studio complex.

The transition is unlikely to happen overnight. Viewers shouldn’t expect the programme to suddenly adopt a carbon copy of the World Cup studio. Instead, BBC Sport will introduce elements of the workflow where they genuinely enhance storytelling.

Analysis is expected to be one of the biggest beneficiaries. “The presenters have really enjoyed being able to stand on the floor and analyse the game while looking directly at the screen,” Murphy explains.

“Analysis is becoming an increasingly important part of what we do, not just on broadcast television but across digital platforms and social media as well.”

That, of course, reflects a broader shift within sports broadcasting.

Studios are no longer simply places where presenters introduce matches and conduct interviews. Increasingly, they are becoming flexible storytelling environments capable of combining live analysis, augmented graphics, data visualisation and multiple presentation styles within a single programme.

Producing so much of the tournament from Salford rather than sending large numbers of people halfway around the world has obvious sustainability advantages.”

For BBC Sport, the World Cup has accelerated that evolution. For MediaCity Studios, the legacy is equally significant.

Because BBC Sport chose to base much of its presentation operation in Salford rather than overseas, hundreds of people have gained valuable experience working with LED, XR and real-time production technologies.

“Because they’ve chosen to base this operation here, hundreds of people in the region have had the opportunity to develop new skills,” says Waters. “There’s also the environmental benefit. Producing so much of the tournament from Salford rather than sending large numbers of people halfway around the world has obvious sustainability advantages.”

Those gains will outlast the tournament itself. Skills developed inside HQ3 will now feed into future productions, while the workflows refined during the World Cup can continue to evolve across BBC Sport’s football output and beyond.

Looking back, it’s tempting to regard the World Cup studio simply as another impressive television set. In reality, it represented something much more important.

It marked BBC Sport’s transition from green screen to LED. It demonstrated what can be achieved when broadcaster, facilities provider and technology partners work as a genuinely integrated team. And it established a production model that will influence one of British television’s most recognisable sports programmes, Match of the Day, for years to come.