The Spanish Super Cup final once again served up a treat of a football match, with Barcelona defeating Real Madrid 3-2 in a classic encounter in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, earlier this month (Sunday 11th January).

In some respects, it was a repeat of last year’s final, when Barcelona beat Real Madrid 5-2; plenty of goals, incidents and even a red card for Barcelona in both matches. But while the action on the pitch may have been similar, there were some key differences in the way the match was covered.

“The final was one of the strongest matches that we’ve seen. It was 2-2 in the first half; a lot of goals, a lot of back and forth, so it was exciting – a perfect final,” said Miguel Caso, chief broadcast officer at Riyadh-based Alamiya Media.

“Telefónica always comment the same, that coming to Saudi to do the Super Cup is like doing it at home”

With Telefónica holding the Spanish rights to the Super Cup, the telco contracted Alamiya as its facilities and technical services partner – as it has done for previous iterations of the mini tournament.

Speaking with SVG Europe a few days after the match, Caso explained that this year there was a shift away from new tools, with more of a focus on “editorially rich” coverage.

And, with so many incidents to recap and explain, the decision to deploy more super slow-motion cameras was justified, enhancing the ability for storytelling of key moments and replays.

“I think it gave, editorially, especially for the replays, very rich content,” said Caso. “The director managed to play them live, with some very good replays of incidents and goals.”

For the final, Alamiya provided 36 cameras. An FPV (first person view) drone – added to the mix last year – was not used this year. Aerial coverage was courtesy of SkyCam with a Sony P50 camera and a Canon lens.

Sony HDC-3500s for the super slow and Sony HDC-5500s were used for the ultra-slow-motion replays.

Alamiya has standardised on Sony and is “almost fully” Sony-based, says Caso, with Canon as lens provider.

“For us, these are the cameras that we feel offer the reliability, especially in very challenging environments. When you are producing in August during the beginning of the football season, with 90% humidity and 45 degrees heat, you really need very solid equipment.

“All the (Canon) lenses are very wide range, from the 111 for the box lenses to the standard ones, including 22s, and some 90s – a good assortment of sizes for the coverage. And of course, our Skycam, as any top tier match must have. That is done with a Sony P50 and a Canon lens.

“We try to maintain the consistency across the technology and the brand; the only camera that was different was the DJI drone, which was used for beauty shots.”

Alamiya deployed three of its outside broadcast units for the match. As well as supporting the production of the world feed, Alamiya also produced two unilateral feeds: one for Telefónica’s Movistar channel and one in Arabic for local broadcaster Thmanyah.

Caso spoke about the longstanding relationship between Alamiya and Telefónica, which dates back some five years.

“We provide all the technology, all the cameramen. And they appoint the director and bring a layer of technical management.”

Caso, who hails from Spain, referred to the preponderance of Spanish and Portuguese camera crew working for Alamiya.

“Telefónica always comment the same, that coming to Saudi to do the Super Cup is like doing it at home. Most of the camera operators, at some point in their life, they’ve been working for La Liga, or with Telefónica in other projects. It means they can minimise the number of people that they bring – such as the director, the VT coordinator – Alamiya does the rest.”

The current model is a fully on-site production, with everything done on prem, including portacabins in the OB compound for VAR and virtualisation. Alamiya also provides SNGs for satellite distribution, with a small MCR for controlling the quality and the signal of the feeds, and the routing and destination of each of them.

“All that in the future will be moved,” says Caso. “That’s what you have in the UK with the likes of IMG, and with Telefónica themselves, and that is something that Alamiya is investing in.”

Work on the 2110-equipped broadcast centre started in October, and it is expected to be operational by December.

“It will change a lot of things, not only for the Saudi Pro League (Alamiya was appointed by IMG in 2024 to provide facilities and resource services for its SPL coverage), but also for these big competitions, where we can centralise many of the workflows. For sure, we will be able to do remote production from the centres. But I think, for instance, I do see the virtualisation taking place there, graphics operations as well.

“As a 2110 centre, it will give us the flexibility that allow us not only to meet the needs now, but obviously we always keep an eye on 2034 (Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 Fifa World Cup). It seems to be far away, but we are gearing ourselves up and this centre is being conceptualised to meet those needs and to be flexible enough to grow and adapt.”