The Scottish division of independent production company Sunset+Vine is producing BBC Sport’s coverage of UEFA Women’s Euro 2025.
The BBC is sharing tournament rights with ITV, and has both England and Wales games during the group stage and the first pick of the quarter-finals.
To deliver its coverage, Sunset+Vine is 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 is producing 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 will come from a green-screen virtual studio designed to resemble a Swiss chalet.
“We wanted it to be very Swiss,” says Stephen Booth, Sunset+Vine executive producer (pictured below), speaking to SVG Europe during the first week of the tournament. “We experimented with a few different scenic backgrounds. Lake Lucerne is fairly iconic. So we have lakes and mountains. It gives a flavour of what Switzerland’s famous for, without being too clichéd. That’s reflected in the opening titles, too.
“It’s not necessarily more than we’d do for the men’s game, but we’re aware there’s a role to provide context.”
“We’ve got screens on either side of the set that we can walk to for analysis,” he adds. “We were quite keen to have something that looked as real as possible, so you can walk around it. There’s also an exterior set-up so you can see the chalet in relation to the lake. Plus, we’ve got a downstairs green room area, which is, in theory, sitting underneath the main studio. That’s used for pre-match analysis predominantly. This will come into play more as the tournament progresses and we have more to analyse.”
The green screen studio is 85m², and has three pedestal cameras and one jib. Tracking is done using Mo-Sys while the rendering is done in Unreal Engine through Vizrt, utilising Viz Arc for operational and keying.
The new element in this studio is a plug-in from Vizrt called ‘Reality Connect’. This takes ‘skeletal’ data of the talent in a stand-up position from a basic camera and provides accurate shadows and reflections on the virtual floor. The original set design was done by Jim Mann and Toby Kalitowski.
BBC Sport creative director John Murphy, who spoke to SVG Europe from the All England Club at Wimbledon, explains: “Jim and Toby are our trusted partners and they were chosen by Sunset+Vine for Euro 2025 too. This made the workflow and sign-off process great for us, as the relationships are already there. It was also good for our VR studio implementation lead, Andrew Bowker, as he has worked closely with Jim and Toby before. All of the data integration of the AR, the screens, and overall studio set-up is managed by Andy after delivery of the model from Jim.”
One of the main challenges of working with a green screen, Booth says, was ensuring a realistic connection between the presenters’ feet and the virtual set. A round black mat was ultimately used to address this.
As with other BBC productions, Piero is being used for analysis. “It’s all pre-built,” says Booth. “We have a stand-up area where we can refer to what’s being shown on screen and a projector in the studio so talent can look and point at the correct spot.”
Data and information presentation remains consistent with previous tournaments, but with some added background detail for pundits. “Our presenters and pundits know the teams well, especially England,” Booth notes. “But when, for example, Finland score, we may have to look that player up, as she might not be a household name.”
Information is often presented in a sequence designed to support storytelling and viewer engagement. “We have information boards for each player,” he explains. “For example, for Caroline Graham Hansen of Norway, we’d show a stats page before cutting to her warming up and beginning analysis. It’s not necessarily more than we’d do for the men’s game, but we’re aware there’s a role to provide context.”
For England and Wales matches, presentation will be on-site. “We’re on an outdoor, elevated platform at the stadiums,” says Booth. “These positions are built by UEFA. In Lucerne, it’s on the curve of the stadium, quite high up. For England vs Netherlands in Zurich, it’s behind a bank of seats overlooking the pitch. They’re all open-air, standing positions with space for one presenter and three guests.”
All matches are cut from a remote gallery at Quay House. A second gallery is available for matches streamed via BBC iPlayer when multiple games are taking place simultaneously.
Sunset+Vine also has unilateral coverage options in place. “We’ve got two camp crews – one for England and one for Wales – and some pitchside presenter slots booked through UEFA,” says Booth. “We also use our own facilities to send content back. For Wales vs Netherlands and England vs Netherlands, for example, we’ll have a Timeline OB truck on site. We can also use LiveU links from the team hotels.”
For on-site games, a ‘big lens’ camera inside the stadium offers additional flexibility, particularly for pre-match. “UEFA give us feeds of five players per team,” Booth says. “If they’re not who we’re focusing on, we can use our own lens. We also have ENG positions for England and Wales games. So we do have a bit of control.”
All feeds are delivered via fibre, with multiple layers of redundancy. “For each match, we’ve got an A and B feed. For England matches, we also have our own camera inside the ground. If both feeds go down, that means we still have a ‘Camera 1’. And if we lose pictures completely, we return to the studio. Worst case scenario, and I hope we never have to do this, we could switch to supplementary cameras from our platform.”
With no IBC for this tournament and budget considerations in play, a remote production model was the obvious choice, and a more sustainable one.
Sustainability is front and centre for Sunset+Vine, both in travel (primarily by train) and on screen.
“Jack does analysis for the Scottish Women’s Premier League for BBC Alba. But on a tournament like this, we’ve got a lot more bells and whistles. Mark is showing him the ropes. It’s all part of the development of our young staff.”
“Within the editorial, we’re trying to highlight positive sustainability stories,” Booth explains. “In the past, it’s sometimes been a negative narrative. But what BAFTA Albert tells us is that positive stories about what is being done resonate more.
“For example, we filmed in Basel and included a sequence on the tram network, which is a sustainable transport system. We’re also planning a piece on the latest trend in Switzerland of floating home from work, which happens on the River Aare in Bern and the Rhine in Basel. We’ll bring that kind of thing into the coverage.”
Training and upskilling are also key elements. “We’ve brought junior staff down from Scotland who haven’t worked on a tournament like this before. A great example is Jack Donnelly, a junior AP who is shadowing our lead analyst, Mark Golley, one of the most experienced in the business.
“The sort of analysis that Jack does week in, week out, is for the Scottish Women’s Premier League for BBC Alba. But on a tournament like this, we’ve got a lot more bells and whistles. Mark is showing him the ropes. It’s all part of the development of our young staff.”
As you would expect for a women’s football tournament, there is a high percentage of the production team and crew that are female. But it’s not done for diversity’s sake, notes Booth.
“We want people on the team who are enthusiastic about the women’s game. Michael Steele, for instance, presents women’s football on BBC Alba in Gaelic but is here as an AP. He loves the game. We don’t bring people in just because of gender; we bring them in for their knowledge and passion. Today in the gallery, the PA, vision mixer, programme editor and VT coordinator are all women. So we’ve got strong female representation in frontline roles.”
Promoting the women’s game is part of the creative brief, though. “It’s all about storytelling and helping viewers get to know the players better,” Booth says. “In 2013, it was about introducing them. Now, players like those in the England squad are household names. But there are still compelling stories at Euro 2025. For example, Sarina Wiegman is coaching England against her native Netherlands. We’ve been filming there with people who knew her early on.
“We’re also doing a piece on ACL injuries – a serious issue – but framing it around its impact on the tournament. We want to bring editorial rigour, not just cheerlead. We’re also using UEFA’s HIVE system to find story leads and bring them to life.”
Viewership success will depend largely on England and Wales’ progress in the tournament. And even the best TV producer in the world has no control over that.
“The fear is England getting knocked out in the group stage,” Booth admits. “That makes [engagement] harder. We’ve seen that before, like with the men’s team in 2014. But once England are into the quarter-finals, the tournament has momentum. Characters are built, and viewer affinities deepen. If England go out, we have to work harder for access and shift focus to other stories. But by then, the audience is already invested.”
And if England do well?
“Without giving too much away, we’ve got other buttons ready to push. You start to want to reflect the excitement at home as well.”
BBC coverage of UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 continues across BBC TV and iPlayer until the final on Sunday 27 July, with highlights and clips available on the BBC Sport website, app and social platforms.
Selected credits:
- Executive producer: Stephen Booth
- Producer (programme editor): Amy Thabet
- Director: Ian Finch
- Vision mixer: Ema Hamlin
- VT co-ordinator: Julia Cooper
- PA: Charlotte Nott
