Rebecca Lowe feared the worst. She was in the middle of a regular Premier League Sunday broadcast in April 2025 when a tap on the shoulder came from Sam Flood, the president of production at NBC Sports.“He whispered: ‘Have you got a second?’,” Lowe says. “I thought ‘It’s never good when the boss asks if you have a second’.”Lowe’s studio analysts Gary Neville and Robbie Mustoe, both former Premier League players, looked on with concern. Then Flood broke the news.“We’ve had a phone call from Fox from Brad Zager (the president and executive producer at Fox Sports) and they’ve asked for you to host the World Cup. We have said yes… Don’t tell anybody.”Get free access to the most comprehensive World Cup coverage in The Athletic app.She smiles, reflecting on that day 14 months ago. “Five minutes later, I crept out, called my husband (former professional soccer player and manager Paul Buckle) and had a moment in the bathrooms of NBC. I spoke to Fox the following week.”On American television, leading hosts are not always afforded job-sharing privileges between rival networks. But for Lowe, NBC was prepared to make an exception.Over the past 13 years, she has become the trusted and authoritative voice of NBC’s Premier League coverage, but she is highly familiar to broader audiences, having presented seven Olympic Games and multiple Kentucky Derbies. This, however, is her first men’s World Cup as a host, joining on a short-term loan to head up Fox’s coverage alongside a panel featuring ex-players Thierry Henry, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Alexi Lalas.(Left to right) Rebecca Lowe, Thierry Henry, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Alexi Lalas are fronting Fox’s World Cup coverage. (Fox Sports)The studio mix caught the eye before the World Cup began and it has divided opinion over the past week, particularly the dynamic between former Barcelona and Inter striker Ibrahimovic, and ex-United States defender Lalas. An early exchange that went viral involved Ibrahimovic rebuking Lalas for describing France’s first-half performance against Senegal as “arrogant”.“It’s not arrogance,” Ibrahimovic said. “It’s confidence. Ignorant people will say it’s arrogance. Intelligent people will say it is confidence.”Lowe says the quartet first met for a photoshoot with Fox in March but the first screen rehearsal came only in the days before the start of the tournament. She describes Henry, a World Cup winner with France in 1998, as “very thoughtful and generous”, recounting how surprised she was that he remembered she supports Premier League side Crystal Palace and then congratulated her after her side’s recent European title.Lowe and Lalas have previous experience, having worked together for ESPN at Euro 2012. “I hadn’t laid eyes on him since 2012, so it was nice to see him again,” she says. “I know how he works and he’s hilarious.”She had never met Ibrahimovic before, however; a man whose reputation precedes him.“He was straight away everything I thought he would be,” she says. “You think: ‘is this really a front? How long will he keep this up?’. He hasn’t dropped it for me. He didn’t drop it in the makeup room. He didn’t drop it anywhere, so that is genuinely him.”Who is the most unpredictable of the trio?“Zlatan would probably want me to say Zlatan,” Lowe says. “And he’s probably right. Sometimes he has a lot to say. Other times, he says very little. But within the very little, he says a lot.“Thierry is so cerebral. I’m blown away by how much of a thinker he is. And with Alexi, you know what you’re going to get with his intensity and passion. But I find it refreshing because each time, he’s talking about something different.”Over the long, demanding hours of a tournament, Lowe could be forgiven for an eye-roll here or a deep sigh there. Lalas and Ibrahimovic, in particular, can pose a challenge to a host, taking conversations off-kilter or to unexpected places. It is a different test of Lowe’s skills, exposing her to new studio guests compared to the long-term consistency at NBC alongside former players Mustoe, Earle and Tim Howard over the past decade.Lowe and Co. have a laugh during their World Cup coverage (Fox Sports)“But I love that,” she insists. “I am learning each day.”Lowe sees her role as taking the viewer by the hand and guiding them, step-by-step, through the tournament. She is mindful that a World Cup brings a different audience: “It’s going to break down between absolute soccer nuts, casual soccer sports fans, and absolute newbies who just happen to be at their friend’s house and the game is on.”She needs to inform the newbies, without patronizing those who know the game inside out already.“I’ve been battling on and off with this for a few months,” she says, explaining her preparation. “It’s like preparing for an Olympics, as those sports may have viewers who don’t know the rules, and I have to try and make that accessible, as well as knowing the biggest names to sell the stars.“Similarly, I don’t get the sense we will be getting Zlatan to talk you through the right-back of Uzbekistan. Not because he can’t, but because the viewer is not going to be sold so much on that. They may be sold on the story of Abdukodir Khusanov (the star of Uzbekistan who plays for Manchester City) — that’s a much sexier story to sell.”For each team, Lowe prepares extensive report cards, detailing the key storylines, the coach, the star players and the team’s qualification route. When she prepared her opening script for the United States’ first game against Paraguay, she was thinking about the parents she meets in a California schoolyard when she drops off and picks up her 10-year-old son, Teddy.Rebecca’s Lowe’s notes for the opening game of the World Cup, Mexico vs. South Africa (Rebecca Lowe / Fox Sports)“They may be thinking: ‘We like soccer but do not really watch much of it, but we’ll watch the World Cup’. I want them to feel included in a sport that perhaps they’ve never felt included in before.”Even for Lowe, who is 45 and an experienced broadcaster, last week’s U.S. opener on-site at SoFi stadium, in which they beat Paraguay 4-1, created goose pimples.“Not only was it different from any other sporting event I’ve covered; it was different from anything I’ve ever done in my life,” she says. “I will remember it for the rest of my life.“Something was in the air that night. Everybody was on a real high from day one, and then with the U.S. playing how they played, it was the greatest day.“I’ve seen a lot in this industry — cup finals, playoff finals, massive Premier League games — but I’d never seen anything like that, ever. I went to bed that night with a feeling in my body that I’ve never felt before. The adrenaline was so high and I was so tired, but I couldn’t sleep.”Lowe’s own love of soccer began at age nine in London when her dad, then a news presenter at the BBC, took her to a Crystal Palace game. The first World Cup she remembers is Italia ’90. “I’m 99 percent sure I remember the Gazza (Paul Gascoigne) tears in the moment. And Pavarotti of course. That song (‘Nessun dorma’, which became a soundtrack to the tournament) stirs up so many emotions because it was the year I fell in love with the sport.”For Lowe, the hours are long and demanding. The group stage often involves four games per day, and she is usually on air for three of them, meaning she is on site for around 13 hours when factoring in preparation and wrap time, plus hair and makeup. She says she is keeping a journal during the tournament, as she did every night between the age of 11 and 28. She will switch off with a non-fiction book before bed, “even if I manage one page before I fall asleep”.Thursday brought her first day off of the competition. She headed for intravenous micronutrient therapy, “stuffed full of vitamins, minerals and all the things”.“I’ve become so L.A.,” she says with a laugh, referring to her adopted home.Lowe is a remarkable British export in many ways. She was already established as a broadcaster in the United Kingdom, previously working for the BBC and then becoming the first woman presenter of an FA Cup final on British television when she anchored the 2012 edition for ESPN. But in 2013, she and her husband committed fully to a life in the U.S. after NBC secured Premier League rights and offered her the hosting gig.Rebecca Lowe, here with Robbie Earle and Robbie Mustoe in 2013, has fronted NBC’s Premier League coverage for more than a decade. (Tim Clayton / Corbis via Getty Images)“I am blessed to be married to somebody who understands my job,” Lowe says. “He gets the size of this.”Life as a TV presenter has all gone rather well for someone who originally set out to be an actress, first studying drama at the University of East Anglia in England before entering broadcasting as a junior producer on the UK radio station Talksport. When she set sail for the U.S. in 2013, could she ever have imagined fronting the co-host nation’s World Cup coverage?“You’ve just given me chills all the way down my arms and I’m actually… quite emotional.”She pauses briefly, her bottom lip quivering.“Leaving England was a really, really, really big decision. I had done 10 years in the industry. I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay in it. I found it quite a difficult place to be as a woman.”She has spoken previously about those experiences as a touchline reporter, particularly one night when Leeds United fans sang misogynistic chants at her that were audible to those watching on television. Plus the day she needed a security guard to ensure her safety at a lower-league stadium.“Moving to the States was a huge decision; not just to stay in the industry but also because Paul was the Luton Town manager at the time. We were trying for a baby, we were trying to set up a life together. He has two children who were in their late teens then. Emigrating is a big deal. But he gave up his job, he came with me to start this new life together.“In this industry, you are here today, gone tomorrow. But we took everything with us, including our cat. The whole lot came to America on a ship.“I’m so terrified of ever being casual, complacent or too confident in this role. This industry can just chew up and spit you out at any point. But if you said to me I’d be hosting the World Cup when we landed on these shores nearly 13 years ago, I’d have been shocked. It’s absolutely the pinnacle of my life.”