Production ambitions: Over Exposed on making the National League Promotion Final for DAZN as spectacular as possible

At the National League Promotion final, DAZN’s presentation team work pitchside [L to R] Ade Oladipo, Dean Brennan and Aaron McLean, with technical services provided by Over Exposed

Host broadcaster for the National League and exclusive rights holder, DAZN, turned up to Wembley with Over Exposed ready to bring this epic battle to viewers at home.

Over Exposed produces the three and four-camera remote productions for DAZN, covering 25 matches over the course of the season, as well as the in-studio Multi-Match Live productions for the broadcaster, bringing that total up to around 35 productions over the course of the National League season.

We caught up with the team at Over Exposed, with Ed Tischler, director at Over Exposed, Chris Chambers-Smith, Over Exposed technical producer, and Russell Martin, founder and COO at Over Exposed, to find out more about how the season had moved the relationship with DAZN forwards, and the National League’s coverage onwards and upwards.

Says Tischler on why DAZN went for Over Exposed: “They wanted somebody who could meet the right price point but also was agile enough to do those three and four camera remotes as well. We could break down the challenges they had commercially, whilst at the same time still delivering what they needed to deliver to the National League.

“It evolved over the year For Chris and his team [from doing] the three camera and four cameras on site, then we built a studio in Cobham for a new show called Multi-Match Live, bringing in three matches at once and having presenters around that,” continues Tischler.

With DAZN’s Multi-Match Live programme, viewers can keep tabs on multiple National League games playing simultaneously, as studio-based presenters for the show bring in feeds from key matches around the country and commentate on what is going on, talking to on-site reporters. Over Exposed brings everything into the studio on IP and, says Martin, “we did all sorts of reverse comms using Unity, using everything we’ve got to create something”.

It was all fireworks and excitement at the packed Wembley Stadium for the 2025 National League Promotion final

Evolving product

Tischler continues on how the product for DAZN has evolved over the season: “Over the eight or nine months [we’ve been working with DAZN on the National League] it’s evolved into this much bigger product, which culminates in the National League Playoff Final at Wembley. So it has this incredible sort of curve where you start off doing three cameras in Southend in August, and you end up at Wembley. It’s quite a journey!” notes Tischler.

Martin comments: “It was quite nice going from the little grounds – you’re turning up with three or four cameras and a small remote element – to then turning up at Wembley Stadium with a hundred-odd cases of equipment, a double expanding OB, fibre lines, 28 mics, and just the sheer scale of how it all evolves.”

Tischler adds that the access to players and the ability to translate that into content is far greater when working at the National League level than some of the higher levels of football. He comments: “The players are brilliant. You know what, that makes the difference. Because it’s the fifth tier, your access to players and to content is so much better than, say, if you are trying to squeeze out Man City or Liverpool; you’re so much closer to that human story. I think that makes a real difference in the content. It’s a real people thing, the National League.”

Adds Chambers-Smith: “I think the run up to the final as well was quite poignant because on the 18th we did a double header, North and South Promotions final Multi-Match Live studio show from here, and we were on air for nine hours straight from start to finish. And we had boys and girls on site covering those matches, we brought those [feeds] in. Then onto the 20th and we did the first National League playoff and then the 21st we did the second National League playoff, and then the 1 June we did the final playoff. It was a really intense run of matches and work for DAZN, but I think we kind of pulled it off quite well.”

Production ambitions

Chambers-Smith comments on the challenges of bringing a production together to look as expensive as the Premier League at Wembley, when it clearly is not. “The most challenging thing with the final – and with all of the National League going through the entire season – is the scale of production we want to produce with the resources we have.

“That’s not saying we are under resourced or anything; Rhys really knows how to push a show, ie, these multiple presentation positions and figuring out how we’re going to throw between all of those.”

However, Over Exposed also had to make sure the production happened without a hitch, which meant some tailoring of the plans was required. Chambers-Smith says about one particular adaption: “The discussions [were around] how we could make our lives a bit simpler and minimise the risks to production by talking to and working with DAZN and the clients to adapt their plans slightly.

“For example, originally they’d planned to spec a box lens on one of their low behind cameras, but this then meant we had to reposition our presentation camera – camera 13 – to then do some interviews, which meant the audio was going to be out of sync because there’s going to be a difference between the lines and the delays between the lines and the RF, so on and so on,” Chambers-Smith explains. “So we had a chat with client, spoke through the implications of it, and we ended up swinging the lens from an 86 to a 20, thus allowing us to utilise both low behind cameras as presentation cams once out of match mode. This saved us having to have both, while live on air, re-patch SMPTE and repo camera heads. All while also avoiding any potential sync issues; we could set a known frame delay.”

Noisy stadium

Comments Martin on the final and the complications of bringing it to viewers: “The final’s impressive because it’s lower level football, it’s less about the football and more about the experience and the game. [DAZN] had reporters behind each end for each goal that were talking to the commentary, then had a separate pitchside pres that was one minute pitch side, the next minute they’re on the pitch running around with a steadicam; it was a huge spider web of comms and networking to get it all working together.”

There was a total of 25 microphones including the pitch effects, including six RF microphones, eight backup hard wire mics. “There was a lot of noise around the stadium,” adds Martin.

Tischler says that despite the resource restrictions for this match, as it was the final everything had to be captured, including the emotions on the day – which for the two clubs going head to head were extremely high as one would move up into the English Football League (EFL)’s League Two, and the other would remain in the National League.

Tischler says: “It was all eyes on DAZN on this day, with the culmination of a season’s work. But not only that, with those resources you’re trying to capture this really quickly evolving story, because it’s a Playoff final, you’ve got two very diametrically opposed emotions on the day; you’ve got the delight of Oldham going through because whilst it’s fifth tier [football], on that day, that team makes a return to the English Football League [League Two] so it’s a big deal for them, and obviously the other team doesn’t. So on the day you’ve got all of those press elements, it goes into extra time, it drives the running order longer, then there’s penalties, then you’re trying to get all the cameras to make sure you’re capturing all of that, then at the end you’ve got to try and capture all of those emotions. I think it’s about being adaptive as well. You didn’t know what was going to happen.”

Notes Martin: “Traditionally, a Premier League match would have 30-odd cameras and we’ve basically delivered a very similar, if not the same, end product, using a lot less cameras by repurposing, moving, re-plugging, separate audio routes, multiple layers on the audio desk to allow for delays, etc.”

The new National League season will kick off on Saturday 9 August 2025.