--- title: this is where the World Cup is ACTUALLY made | daily.dev description: A behind-the-scenes look at the International Broadcast Center (IBC) for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, exploring how the entire tournament's video and audio... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/this-is-where-the-world-cup-is-actually-made-nnmxfedqn twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: this is where the World Cup is ACTUALLY made | daily.dev og:description: A behind-the-scenes look at the International Broadcast Center (IBC) for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, exploring how the entire tournament's video and audio... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/this-is-where-the-world-cup-is-actually-made-nnmxfedqn og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/NNmxFEDqn.png og:image:alt: this is where the World Cup is ACTUALLY made og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # this is where the World Cup is ACTUALLY made **[NetworkChuck](https://daily.dev/sources/networkchuck)** · 31 min read · 14 upvotes · 3 comments ## Summary A behind-the-scenes look at the International Broadcast Center (IBC) for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, exploring how the entire tournament's video and audio production is centralized in one temporary facility in Dallas. Every stadium connects via three redundant 200Gbps fiber links, with each camera feed duplicated across two physically separate network paths for zero-failure tolerance. A custom software platform called TFC sits atop Cisco Nexus and Arista switches to manage ~150,000 multicast flows simultaneously, routing duplicate red and blue packet streams to broadcasters like Fox, ESPN, and Telemundo. The video also demonstrates decoding an actual World Cup packet capture using Wireshark, revealing uncompressed 1080p video at ~5.2 Gbps transmitted via the SMPTE ST 2110-20 standard. Additional details cover smart ball technology for audio tracking, commentary audio delay synchronization, and full stadium-level backup infrastructure including satellite uplinks. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How does multicast networking let one camera feed reach hundreds of broadcasters without overloading the network? A multicast network duplicates a single incoming camera stream inside the network itself rather than at the source, so the camera only sends one stream while the network replicates it to every receiver that requests it (Fox, Telemundo, ESPN, etc.). Without multicast, a single camera might need to send 100 separate streams, overwhelming the links. In the World Cup broadcast network this is managed by a custom software platform called TFC, which plugs into Cisco Nexus and Arista switches via gRPC and coordinates roughly 150,000 multicast flows. _Engineers weighing multicast architecture for high-fanout video delivery can find real-world numbers like this on daily.dev._ ### Why does each World Cup stadium have three separate 200 gig fiber connections to the broadcast center? Each stadium runs three 200 gig fiber links over physically diverse paths so that at least two connections stay active if a fiber cut occurs, which happens often. Two of the three links are actively used at all times, each carrying a duplicate 'red' and 'blue' copy of every camera and audio feed, while the receiver simply uses whichever duplicate packet arrives first; the third link serves purely as backup. _Anyone designing redundant network paths for mission-critical video can study this failover pattern on daily.dev._ ### What is the SMPTE ST 2110 standard used for in professional video networks? SMPTE ST 2110 is a standard for transmitting high-quality, uncompressed digital media over IP networks, and it defines how video and audio are broken into packets for transport. In practice a single 1080p frame at 59.94 fps is split across 4,320 packets, with four rows of the image per packet, and RTP marker flags indicate frame boundaries within a Wireshark capture. _Developers working with uncompressed video-over-IP protocols can dig into standards details like this on daily.dev._ ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@renehoehle** · 1 upvotes > I've seen it 2 times now it's really impressive how much network you have for such an event. **@wijitharanawaka** · 0 upvotes > Well done chuck..well said about behind the scene (without Telecom/Network Engineering this is impossible). ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Streaming the FIFA World Cup with TelevisaUnivision](https://daily.dev/posts/streaming-the-fifa-world-cup-with-televisaunivision-sygec1048) · Google Cloud · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [When 80,000 fans log on at once: The 2026 World Cup’s unique cybersecurity issues](https://daily.dev/posts/when-80-000-fans-log-on-at-once-the-2026-world-cup-s-unique-cybersecurity-issues-m0ovcvqxr) · CSO Online · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The AI Architecture Behind FIFA World Cup 2026](https://daily.dev/posts/the-ai-architecture-behind-fifa-world-cup-2026-r6j8grqif) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Robot dogs, hunter drones, and AI cameras: the tech securing the 2026 World Cup](https://daily.dev/posts/robot-dogs-hunter-drones-and-ai-cameras-the-tech-securing-the-2026-world-cup-kznbof73x) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#networking](https://daily.dev/tags/networking), [#wireshark](https://daily.dev/tags/wireshark) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/this-is-where-the-world-cup-is-actually-made-nnmxfedqn) ```json 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