Behind The Scenes of Fox Sports Studio's Copa América Coverage

This move we're already doing such a big move. You just put another one in that beach at.

What's up guys? Leslie Robbins here for Young Hollywood, coming to you from Fox Sports headquarters in Los Angeles about to take you behind the scenes of what it's like to put on a show covering one of the biggest soccer tournaments in the world. So walk me through Copa America. What we're covering here?

Copa America is it is a warm-up test for the US Men's National team ahead of the biggest sporting event our planet will ever see, the FIFA World Cup in 2026, co-hosted by the US, Mexico, and Canada. This will be the US's stiffest competition prior to that. And the US has gotten to the point where we expect them to do certain things. And one of those things at major tournaments is we expect this US team to get out of the group stage and play in the knockout stage, a do or die type game, win or go home.

What's the most challenging part of being a former player and now having to talk about it?

You just got to make sure that you do your research and watch games, speak from experience, what you see and and try to remember what it's like to what it was to be a player, but at the same time what what fans need to know. Yeah, I mean, I had 17 years of it, so I'm very grateful and was a part of losing teams, winning teams. This space, this retirement space has been fun too.

Well, it's fun and you're on to the next stage of life. Yes, yes. As you grow in life. You're welcoming a new life. Congratulations.

Which has also been been interesting on set, you know, figuring out wardrobe. And I mean the wardrobe team has been absolutely fantastic. So they've picked out some really nice, comfortable things for me. And I want to make sure that people feel the passion that I feel in this case when it comes to what I feel is the greatest game in the world and soccer, and understand that both on and off the field, once you come into the soccer tent, I got a feeling you're not going to leave, and I want to make it as inviting and welcoming as possible. Oh, what a question that is. I bring the fashion, I bring the soccer knowledge, I bring. Now, we have a great team here and some of us were teammates, which we hope adds to the chemistry on camera as well, the fun, the banter, as much as we want to talk the Xs and Os and the expectations. We also want to enjoy ourselves. We have our uh our set here and it just goes on and on. You can see all these different numbers and all the technology and all the bells and whistles and all the mathematics and all the different stuff. Ultimately, when myself or any of the talent are out here, what you have to do is recognize that what you see when you are on air isn't obviously what the viewer is seeing. And so you have to project and you have to put yourself in that. And often times you're referencing over the screens and the monitors and that's the reality of what people are seeing at home.

Now, this looks like a bingo board or chess board. What's what's on the floor here?

So, a lot of times when we were doing, for example, lineups or something like that, we have um you know, these these images of players that will just magically appear. Uh we don't actually see that, but our moves, like anything else, can be choreographed. And so it's easy for us to say, for example, I don't know, we're over here, H12. So they tell me, Henry 12, and I know and then I do my little dance, and I say hello and everything. And again, I'm not seeing anything uh right here, but the viewer is seeing it. And we have multiple layers, we have upstairs, we can do multiple things, we have different sets that we can create. And so it just gives us the opportunity to do a lot of different things here at Fox with this incredible studio that we have upstairs, downstairs, sideways, uh on the floor, in the air. Here's an aerial view of all of the incredible men and women that make us look so good each and every day. And it does, like I said, take a village to do it.

Take me a little bit behind the scenes of Copa America. This show at Fox Sports because this set is probably one of the most gorgeous sets I've actually ever been on.

From a TV perspective of someone sitting in their home and watching, and then when you get here, you know, you realize that it's just, you know, it's just a studio set. It takes a lot of people to get all this together. The prep is really, really intensive for this, but once you get going in the tournament, it it starts to become a little bit easier. Now you're just going game from game. Um and it's nice because there's so many stars that are just featuring for both for both tournaments and this competition.

Talk about that improvisation that maybe happens on set.

Uh typically it's softly planned by maybe me and maybe nobody else. Uh and it's just kind of pulled out of the back pocket. Usually, it's done with uh like a little tap. Like, what what are you doing? Like I'm like, hold on, hang with me or Like Alexi and I have worked together for so many years and he's on one side of the desk, I'm on the other. And I can just do like this little lean when we're not on camera. And he'll he'll catch my eye, I'll catch his eye, I'll I'll just go like a nod or I give him something. A lot of times we are at a desk. Often times people are wearing much more comfortable and appropriate footwear. So, listen, you got to suffer for fashion as we know. Yeah, I'm not someone who knows that much about fashion, but hey, they keep me looking right and ready to be on TV and hopefully do a good job. What's the ounce say if you uh look good, uh you feel good, and uh you perform good. So, hopefully I'm doing that.