Fox’s World Cup coverage will have British flavor, with 6 of 9 play-by-play commentators from UK

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Fox will use British play-by-play commentators for six of its nine announcer teams at this year’s World Cup, adding Ian Crocker, Darren Fletcher and Mark Scott to Ian Darke, Derek Rae and Jacqui Oatley.

There will be four all-British crews and 10 of 18 booth voices will be British, Fox said Wednesday. The tournament, which runs from June 11 to July 19 in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, has expanded from 32 nations to 48, increasing the number of games from 64 to 104.

John Strong, JP Dellacamera and Tyler Terens are the American play-by-play announcers.

British analysts include Warren Barton, Robert Green, Owen Hargreaves and Danny Higginbotham, while the American analysts are Landon Donovan, Maurice Edu, Stu Holden, Cobi Jones and Lori Lindsey.

Fox used just two British voices, Rae and Barton, among its six crews for the 2018 World Cup is Russia when it took over U.S. English-language TV coverage from ESPN. Fox increased to six British voices among five crews for the 2022 tournament in Qatar.

Fox will call all matches on site, as it did in Qatar four years ago. For the 2018 tournament, Fox called 33 matches onsite, including all but one during the knockout rounds.

Sixty-nine games will be on Fox and 35 on FS1, up from 34 on Fox and 30 on FS1 for the 2022 tournament.

Fox’s lead team of Strong and Holden are joined by two other crews returning from Fox’s 2022 coverage: Darke paired with Donovan, the U.S. goal-scoring co-leader, and Oatley with Barton, a former England defender. Oatley in 2022 became the first woman to broadcast a men’s World Cup game for a U.S. network.

Fox’s two other play-by-play broadcasters from 2022 return with new partners: Dellacamera with Lindsey rather than Jones in a swap of former American midfielders and Rae, ESPN’s lead Bundesliga broadcaster, with Green instead of retired American midfielder Aly Wagner.

Green allowed American Clint Dempsey’s long-range shot to bounce through his arms for a tying goal at the 2010 World Cup, giving the U.S. a 1-1 draw against England in its opener. Green was teamed with Rae for Fox at the 2024 European Championship.

Fletcher is paired with Hargreaves, a former England midfielder, in another team that worked for Fox at Euro 2024. Fletcher is a longtime British broadcaster who worked for Fox at the 2019 Yankees-Red Sox games in London and not Hargreaves’ former Manchester United teammate.

Crocker, Sky Sports Scotland’s lead commentator, is paired with Higginbotham, a former Premier League defender who is part of NBC’s EPL overage.

Scott will call games with Jones and Terens, who worked for Fox at last year’s CONCACAF Gold Cup, with Edu, a former American midfielder who was a studio analyst in 2024 for Fox’s coverage of the Euros and Copa America.

Alex Aljoe, Natalie Gedra, Katie Shanahan, Geoff Shreeves and Jenny Taft will be reporters; Tom Rinaldi as at-large commentator; and former EPL referee Mark Clattenburg and former American goalkeeper and coach Joe Machnik will be rules analysts.

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Rebecca Lowe, NBC’s Premier League host, will be among the studio hosts along with Rob Stone.

Studio analysts include Thierry Henry, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Clarence Seedorf, Javier Hernández and Carli Lloyd along with lead analyst Alexi Lalas.

Dempsey, who like Donovan scored 57 international goals, says he also will be part of Fox’s coverage.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer