April 17 – Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks says this summer’s World Cup will be the biggest event in the network’s history. He also confirmed Fox has landed the highly colourful Zlatan Ibrahimovic as a broadcaster, and tucked inside the announcement is a line that should have Alexi Lalas looking over his shoulder.
Speaking to Colin Cowherd at SBJ’s CAA World Congress of Sports in Los Angeles, Shanks said Fox has been readying for the tournament “since the lights went out in Qatar” four years ago. A deep US run would help, he said, but Fox isn’t banking on it.
“People are rooting just as much for the stars of the sport, for Messi, Ronaldo and Mbappe, as they are anything else. So I think it’s a really highly educated soccer market now in the U.S., especially when it comes to international tournaments,” Shanks said. “So we’re going to tell this country the stories of soccer around the world.”
RedBird Capital’s Gerry Cardinale, whose AC Milan employs Zlatan as an adviser, made the introduction. Fox paraded him through its studio.
“I said, ‘Do you have an agent, who do you want me to send the offer to?’ And he said, ‘Zlatan is my agent.’ So we dealt with Zlatan and Zlatan the agent,” Shanks said.
“When we finally got everything done, he called and said, ‘Okay, I am in and you can fire everyone else.’ So I think that’s the guy that we’re going to get on the air, which is going to be absolutely tremendous.”
Alexi Lalas currently holds a microphone at Fox. The same Lalas who has spent years giving his often left field and highly opinionated views on the international game in the region from the authority of a 1994 World Cup cameo and a goatee. The same Alexi Lalas that Zlatan has publicly called a clown and told to go back to hockey.
Zlatan is in the studio. The World Cup starts June 11.
Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]