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ITV is gearing up for a ‘glamorous’ summer in New York while BBC Sport will present the bulk of its coverage of World Cup 2026 from a studio at home, according to a report.
The BBC is expected to host at least the group stage of the tournament from its home base in Salford, with presenters Mark Chapman, Kelly Cates and Gabby Logan staying in England.
Expanded World Cup persuades BBC Sport to stay at home
“With World Cup fixtures increasing from 64 to 104, the BBC is among broadcasters tightening its belt over plans to cover a tournament across three host countries,” reports The Telegraph.
“BBC insiders are staying tight-lipped on when studio coverage would move to New York for the latter knockout rounds.”
It’s understood that ITV has bigger plans than the publicly funded BBC. The Telegraph reports that presenters Mark Pougatch and Laura Woods will be based in “an ITV studio based in Brooklyn showing a backdrop of the iconic Brooklyn Bridge and the tip of Manhattan Island” from the start of World Cup 2026.
ITV is reportedly in talks with pundits Roy Keane, Ian Wright and Gary Neville to build its analysis around the three Premier League legends this summer.
ITV will show 50 matches exclusively, with BBC Sport covering 53. Additionally, both broadcasters will provide live coverage of the final from New Jersey in July.
Despite the distribution of matches between the BBC and ITV under the auspices of the Broadcasting Act, which empowers the UK government to designate ‘listed events’ that must be available free-to-air, the World Cup is a key broadcast ratings battleground.
“The BBC historically achieves better ratings than ITV when the two go head-to-head, gaining a peak audience of 15 million for the 2022 World Cup final between Argentina and France, compared with ITV’s 4.3 million,” according to The Guardian.
The World Cup final in 1966, which was shown live on both the BBC and ITV under the first agreement between the broadcasters to share World Cup coverage, remains the UK’s biggest-ever televised event by average audience. The 2020 European Championship final between England and Italy (in 2021) is fourth on the list.
In 2026, ITV will cover the first two games of the tournament in June as well as England’s first and third group stage matches and Scotland’s second fixture against Morocco.
The confirmed match split sees BBC Sport pick up Scotland’s other group matches and, theoretically, England’s matches in the round of 32, round of 16 and semi-finals.
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