Rebecca Lowe gets candid about ‘terrifying’ helicopter ride that nearly cratered Fox’s World Cup final coverage

During Fox’s four-hour World Cup final pregame coverage, the on-air talent got the full New York experience.

In a logistical novelty, Rebecca Lowe, Thierry Henry, Zlatan Ibrahimović, and Alexi Lalas had to get from a set in Brooklyn Bridge Park to MetLife Stadium for the game, using just about every mode of transportation.

Lowe, the show’s host, did not enjoy the trip.

“We started with a boat from the ferry stop over the East River to another pier, into a car to take us a couple of piers down to the heliport,” Lowe explained on the “After The Whistle” podcast.

“Now, I’ve been on a helicopter once, and I swore I’d never go on one again, but then Fox Sports employed me for the World Cup, and I said, ‘Sure, that sounds great.’”

Lowe and the team ran into their first travel issues during the helicopter ride, which took 30 minutes instead of the planned seven.

She said her and Ibrahimović didn’t talk while in the air because of how scary it was, while Lalas had a huge smile on his face the entire time.

“We were circling. I kept seeing the Yankee Stadium again and again and again,” Lowe said. …”Terrifying, and it’s very bumpy up there, and it was horrible.”

The helicopter then landed in Kearny, New Jersey, instead of at Teterboro, meaning the police escort had to quickly move spots to pick up the team.

Lowe said she remembers being in disbelief that after 39 days of covering the World Cup she was going to miss the final because she was stuck on the New Jersey Turnpike.

The police escort, though, bent a few rules and drove “105 mph” to get the Fox team to the TV set at Metlife in time for their next segment.

“Pull up, we go under, we get on the elevator, it’s now 1:51. I go on the set at 1:52. We go on air at 1:54.”

The pregame show, and the actual game, ended as a huge success for Fox with a reported average of 38.937 million viewers, peaking at nearly 52 million.

It broke the record for the most-watched English-language soccer broadcast in United States history and was the highest-rated non-Super Bowl sporting event in the US since the 1984 Winter Olympics.