ITV‘s World Cup team were forced to run from their luxury studio on Thursday after Laura Woods and her team battled the elements.
Much has been made of the channel’s fancy set-up in the United States for the World Cup, with Woods, Gary Neville and Ian Wright among the team working in North America for the next six weeks.
It’s quite the contrast to the Salford-based studio the BBC have faced backlash for as they opted to work from home rather than send pundits and presenters to the competition.
But the strong winds in Brooklyn were a little too much for the team covering the game between Switzerland and Bosnia and Herzegovina to face, and they were rushed inside to a temporary studio.
Woods, who was anchoring the show, did her best to steer the punditry ship, which featured former Manchester United and Spain midfielder Juan Mata, ex-Lioness Karen Carney, and Arsenal legend Patrick Vieira.
But it was clear to see on the live coverage that the wind had picked up in Brooklyn, with the stars’ clothes and hair blown all over the place.
ITV were forced to abandon their New York World Cup studio due to strong winds in the area
They instead made their ways inside to a different studio to cover the live matches
They eventually moved inside, with the likes of Bradley Wright-Phillips – Ian Wright’s son – former Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou and former Chelsea women’s manager Emma Hayes all on the line-up too.
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 last week.
Those tuning in to the match 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. It is to be ITV’s home for the duration of the tournament.
Roy 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.’
In contrast to ITV, the BBC’s coverage has been led from a state-of-the-art studio in Salford, with the corporation taking the decision to save millions of licence fee money.
‘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.
Contrary to the BBC’s stay-at-home approach, ITV had a stunning view of the New York skyline
‘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.
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