Salford’s BBC Sports Studio 1 is getting ready for a final hurrah for this summer’s football as the Lionesses prepare for a record-breaking third major final in succession against Spain (again – the game is a replay of the 2023 World Cup final, which England lost 1-0) on Sunday.
The main BBC studio footage is filmed in MediaCity’s Sports Studio 1, a green screen studio with an approximately 9.5m x 9m footprint, a green floor and green walls along three sides which was designed to evoke a Swiss landscape alongside a vaulted roof that “references the arcs and circular segments of the tournament logo.” The set features four main cameras, three pedestals and one jib, all using Mo-Sys StarTracker for virtual tracking and, intriguingly, no LED screens, just monitors for presenter visual feedback and a projector monitor onto the green screen wall for the presenters’ reference when they are interacting with the virtual screen.
Virtual set company Lightwell and BK Design Projects created the virtual set, which, Lightwell creative director Jim Mann told TVB Europe recently, was “developed inside Unreal Engine, and that project was then loaded into the Viz engines attached to each of the cameras in the studio.”
Moving onto the equally pressing matter of watching the Lionesses go up and Spain on Sunday, BBC TV coverage kicks off at 4pm on BBC One and iPlayer, with the game itself starting at 5pm. The BBC’s seasoned team, including former Man City and Lionesses star Jill Scott, Champions League winning manager Renee Slegers and presenters Gabby Logan, Alex Scott and Jeanette Kwakye, will be on hand in the studio and pitchside in Switzerland to keep things moving.
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For those who can’t spare an early Sunday evening in front of the telly, you can also listen to the game live on BBC Radio 5 Live, 5 Sports Extra and BBC Sounds, with kick off at 5pm BST and all the usual pre-match build up, or follow online at the BBC website where you’ll find news, match reports, features, analysis, interviews and columns as well as BBC Sport’s industry leading live match pages with in-game clips and the enduringly popular live text commentary.
In the interests of impartiality, other broadcasters are available, and in fact hardcore fans will be delighted to hear that ITV1’s coverage begins half an hour earlier than the BBC, at 3.30pm. The ITV presenting team includes Laura Woods, Ian Wright, Emma Hayes and Karen Carney.
ITV’s coverage of the semi between England and Italy on Tuesday night was watched by a peak of 10.2m across all devices, giving ITV its biggest peak audience of 2025 across ITV1 and ITVX, and averaged 8m viewers across all devices, from kick off until the final whistle, delivering ITV’s biggest audience amongst all adults and the 16-34 demographic for overnight ratings for the year so far. England’s victory on Tuesday night is also brought ITVX’s biggest day this year with 17.2m streams, so the broadcaster will no doubt be hoping for a repeat performance on Sunday.
