At the Women’s Euro 2025, rights holding broadcasters from around Europe favoured a remote approach to their productions as they bought all the action from the pitch to fans in their home countries.
Particularly during the early knockout stages of the competition, broadcasters used a predominantly remote production setup. However, there were more broadcasters on site with ENG crews in those early stages of the 2025 competition than in the previous competition in 2022, a source close to the organising federation said.
As the competition progressed, broadcasters ramped up their onsite productions, with some sending full OBs to Switzerland and abandoning their remote operations almost entirely, especially for those broadcasters whose teams were in the latter stages of the Women’s Euro.
Rights holding broadcasters at the Women’s Euro 2025 also demanded more content from the host broadcaster, UEFA, compared to the 2022 competition, as they strove to be able to provide their viewers with a women’s game with coverage parity to the men’s. To that end, the federation stepped up to the mark with the provision of more cameras, more angles, and more presentation positions on offer in Switzerland.
The coverage from the host broadcast was provided to rights holding broadcasters using traditional satellite distribution, plus all live feeds and selected ISO camera angles were available remotely through the content hub point of presence (PoP) service provided by UEFA’s distribution partner, Eurovision Services. Also, rights holders were able to access Hive, the service that is UEFA’s dedicated media server for all pre and in-tournament non-live content used for broadcast partner production purposes, and ScorePlay, a ‘one-stop shop’ of video and photo content for broadcasters’ use on digital and social media channels.
SVG Europe has taken a post-competition look at how some of the European rights holders covered this summer’s biggest football competition, with ZDF, ARD, NRK, RTVE, ITV Sport and BBC Sport.
The host broadcast standard camera plan for the UEFA 2025 Women’s Euro featured 23 cameras for all group-stage matches (compared to 15 in 2022), 25 cameras for the quarterfinals (compared to 16 in 2022) and 25 for the semi-finals (compared to 17 in 2022) and 27 cameras for the Final (compared to 19 in 2022).
This Euro, up to 19 of these cameras covered every angle of the on-field action, while the rest covered other events surrounding the match including team arrivals, fans and drone shots, providing a variety of additional content.
The host broadcast camera plan for the 2025 Final versus what was used in 2022 included:
- Three super-slow-motion triple-speed cameras (down from four in 2022)
- One high-speed camera (none were used in for 2022)
- Two polecams, one at each end (upgraded from in-goal cameras in 2022)
- One drone (none used in 2022)
- One aerial camera (same as 2022)
- Up to five handheld cameras (compared to four in 2022)
Germany
The joint organisation of Germany’s regional public-service broadcasters, ARD, and public service broadcaster ZDF worked together to bring the Women’s Euro 2025 to German fans. ARD provided comprehensive, cross-media coverage of the UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 from the ARD SportHub at the Sportschau Campus in Cologne, which went out on ARD’s nationwide Das Erste channel. Meanwhile, ZDF was based in Mainz at its National Broadcast Centre (NBC), to bring the live action home on its sports programme, Sportstudio, live and on demand throughout Germany.
Both ARD and ZDF used separate – but integrated – production workflows for the Euro, both on the ground in Switzerland and remotely from Germany.
ZDF utilised the NBC for a predominantly remote production as much as possible, from studio to editing. The NBC was also the hub from which both ZDF and ARD received the world feed signals that made up the backbone of their productions.
From UEFA’s signal distributor in Switzerland, Eurovision Services, the live world feeds were received at the NBC as RTP streams (SMPTE 2022-7) at 1080p50. The Eurovision Services Content Hub was connected to Mainz via ZDF’s national cable network from its POP in Frankfurt (Telehaus Equinix FR-5).
ARD consolidated the production management of its major sporting events centrally at German broadcaster WDR’s Sportschau Campus in Cologne earlier this year with the creation of Sportshub. This means the broadcasters under the ARD wing, including WDR and Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), are more easily able to coordinate and work smoothly and effectively with ZDF through the centralised facility, as well as benefitting from cost reductions and the smarter use of technology, such as cloud solutions.
Both ARD and ZDF shared an OB van in Switzerland – called Ü2 – for Remote Hub functionality. The van followed the German team around Switzerland. If the German match was scheduled to be shown on the ARD channel, the OB van terminated via Mainz in Cologne where the ARD team is based, and if it was to be shown on the ZDF programme, then the OB van was terminated in Mainz at the NBC.
Meanwhile for ARD, its studio in Germany had three LED walls (Aoto M1.7, 1.78 mm pixel pitch) that were powered by Watchout from Ikarus. As well as the studio, a cross-media editorial team was producing ARD’s Women’s Euro content from the SportHub base and venues and hotels in Switzerland, including audio commentary and content for Sportschau.de and social media.
For the German team’s matches in Switzerland, ZDF had a two cameras setup on the pitchside, which it used to bring that electric atmosphere home. It used the pitchside pres position for interviews with pundits and players, and a superflash position at the German team matches for post-match interviews, as well as a Steadicam mid-pitch position for some matches.
For ARD, presentation for the semi final between Germany and Spain in Zurich on 23 July was based on-site by ARD’s hosts from a tribune presentation platform overlooking the pitch and stadium. However, the production was still handled remotely from Cologne.
Both ARD and ZDF deployed ENG teams onsite, sending their content to Mainz or Cologne via LiveU systems. LiveU servers were in operation at both bases in Germany, with signal routing for cross-station material handled via the LiveU matrix.
Norway
Norwegian free to air public broadcaster, NRK, split the Women’s Euro coverage with fellow Norwegian broadcaster, TV2 Norway. TV2 Norway had the first match in Switzerland against the host nation, and NRK took the two other matches for the home team. TV2 Norway got the quarterfinal and semifinal with Norway, and then NRK broadcast the final.
NRK had its main operation in Oslo, including its studios, for the entire tournament. Oslo took the multi-feed package from UEFA to its studio where it had one host and usually three pundits per game.
From Switzerland, NRK had two teams – two live TV reporters and two ENG cinematographers – that ran around doing interviews and getting that ‘live from’ flavour for the studio team. These teams provided everything for the Oslo-based crew using LiveU technology, with cable internet back to Norway.
Using its ENG crews on the ground in Switzerland, NRK had a pitchside position for the games it covered, and for the Norway matches it also had an on-pitch standup position, plus flash and super flash.
Spain
Spanish broadcasters RTVE’s workflow for the UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 was a hybrid production model to ensure editorial depth, technical efficiency, and maximum flexibility. It operated across three production levels depending on match relevance and strategic priority.
The choice of a multi-layered production workflow allowed RTVE to balance cost efficiency with editorial ambition, ensuring Spain’s journey through the tournament to the final was covered with depth and flexibility, while also offering strong coverage for all matches.
Those levels were:
Level 1: Spain Matches (Full unilateral coverage)
These were RTVE’s most intensive productions, with a dedicated crew of 20 professionals on-site.
Uni facilities included:
- Tribune Presentation Position
- Pitchside Presentation Position
- Commentary Position + Pitch Reporter
- Flash Interview
- ENG Camera Behind Goal
- On-pitch Stand-up Position
- Tunnel Live Interview Position
- VIP
These feeds were transmitted via bonded IP technology, using dedicated lines to guarantee stable contribution, booked with Swisscom (official connectivity provider for the event).
All signals were sent to RTVE’s central production MCR in Torrespaña in Madrid, where they were integrated into its broadcast output. The Madrid MCR also managed complex return workflows, delivering clean feeds, mix-minus (n-1) and audio stems back to all remote positions, one of the key coordination and latency challenges in this setup.
Level 2: Non-Spain Matches (Daily partial unilateral coverage)
For all other matches, RTVE had a crew of seven people, maintaining editorial presence.
Unilateral positions included:
- Pitchside Presentation booking Multi Feed
- Commentary Position + Pitch Reporter
- Flash Interviews (At the Multi)
- ENG Camera Behind Goal
Feeds were again transmitted over dedicated IP lines from the stadiums to Madrid, with bidirectional communication and remote gallery integration.
Level 3: Off-tube Matches (Group Stage only)
A limited number of group-stage matches were produced entirely remotely with off-tube commentary teams operating from RTVE facilities in Madrid and Barcelona, using just the world feed.
Centralised Production and Daily Programme
All these onsite feeds were integrated at RTVE’s A4 studio in Torrespaña, where a core team of 30 professionals was dedicated to the event. This setup supported both the live match productions and RTVE’s daily magazine show.
Supplementary Coverage: Spanish National Team
To complement RTVE’s matchday operations, it deployed two ENG crews (six people in total) embedded with the Spanish national team in Lausanne. This unit provided:
- Daily live details
- Exclusive interviews
- Long-form features for news and sports programming
- Contributions for both linear and digital platforms
UK
BBC Sport shared tournament rights with ITV Sport, using completely separate productions.
In the early stages of the tournament through to the quarter finals, ITV Sport’s team was working out of its technical services provider, Timeline TV’s, facilities in Ealing, London. The remote production was carried out from ITV Sport’s VR hub in London using Star Tracker, Unreal Engine and more.
ITV Sport’s main presentation team was based in Ealing and it was also on site during the group stages and the quarter final with three reporting teams, respectively covering the England and Wales teams as well as various European teams.
ITV Sport honed its studio-based production in Ealing for the Women’s Euros with a tried and tested plan from the Rugby World Cup 2023. When it had two consecutive matches with different talent teams, by adding an extra gallery and sharing VR engines, it could make the best use of the overall VR facility and pre-recording the opening of the second game with the incoming talent.
From the semi finals onwards, a 70-strong ITV Sport crew was on the ground in Switzerland with a full OB. Timeline TV’s UHD4 truck travelled from the UK to Switzerland for the semi final and final. UHD4 is a triple-expanding IP OB truck with a three-row production area.
On the workflow with the team in Switzerland, there were four edits running back in the UK and using a Lucidlink workflow, which allowed the editor back in the UK to get access to more of the EVS angles that the team were able to access once onsite.
Meanwhile, the BBC worked with the Scottish division of independent production company, Sunset+Vine, which produced BBC Sport’s coverage of the UEFA Women’s Euro 2025.
To deliver its coverage, Sunset+Vine was embedded within the BBC Sport operation at Quay House, part of the BBC’s facilities at MediaCityUK in Salford, Greater Manchester.
With match output provided by host broadcaster UEFA, Sunset+Vine produced pre-, half-time and post-match programming for the home nations matches from inside the Swiss stadiums, while handling production remotely. Coverage of all other matches came from a green screen virtual studio designed to resemble a Swiss chalet.
The green screen studio was 85m² and had three pedestal cameras and one jib. Tracking was done using Mo-Sys while the rendering was done in Unreal Engine through Vizrt, utilising Viz Arc for operational and keying.
All matches were cut from a remote gallery at Quay House. A second gallery was available for matches streamed via BBC iPlayer when multiple games were taking place simultaneously.
Sunset+Vine also had unilateral coverage options in place with ENG crews covering the England and the Welsh team on site.
