Unlocking character
At Sportcast, the new rights cycle has meant a lot of changes across everything it does, from the Bundesliga to Bundesliga 2. Says Seamus Neary, Sportcast’s director of matchday operations: “This season for us means a new rights cycle covering the next four years in both leagues. For us it means we have an even more diversified portfolio that we are offering to all the media partners. If you speak about Sportcast, then of course we work along the whole production chain. This means we start with the world feed, it means we did adjustments to the contribution, as well as the central production facility including the media hub and end with the distribution.”
That production chain includes, of course, cameras, and the new rights cycle has meant significant changes to the camera concepts offered by the DFL to its rights holders, and therefore a lot for Sportcast to facilitate. Sportcast now has, “an even greater differentiation in the camera concepts according to the right packages of the main domestic media partners,” notes Neary.
To aid this, it has created a further three camera concepts to bring the total offerings up to eight camera concepts from five in the previous season, which means it can cover every rights package for both Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2.
Adds Neary: “In the end, I guess it’s about trying to get the unique character of the games and align that to the rights packages. So for example, this means in the Bundesliga 2, usually we cover matches with 11 to 16 cameras. And then in the Bundesliga it goes up to 28 cameras,” he says, referring to the league’s flagship concept and top match of the week.
The DFL has leaned into the idea of providing more access to camera angles and the teams in Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 through the creation of ‘tent pole’ matches for this rights cycle. These are key games in the season where additional access is viewed as being useful to rights holders. Also, as part of their rights this season, the DFL has given key broadcasters a flexible innovation budget, whereby they can use an allocated budget which is part of their package to request additional cameras for specific matches.
Neary adds on the cameras for the top matches: “Speaking about new innovations, of course we have more cine-style cameras, we have even more super slow motion cameras and high motions. We have two explicit coach cams, so that helps us then to also get the emotions directly from the coaching zone and even offers us the possibility to get them in a split screen live or via slow motion.”
As well as the camera concepts changes, the contribution workflow has had an overhaul, Neary says. “In the past [we created] a fibre network for the media services connecting all 18 Bundesliga venues. We’ve now forwarded that also to the media product of the Bundesliga 2, so this means we have a holistic fibre network now which of course helps us for future concepts and topics we want to address.”
Remote production
Part of that is the use of remote production for the first time in Bundesliga 2, with Sportcast working with its outside broadcast partner TVN. TVN has launched the first high grade remote broadcast OB truck in Germany. Although remote production does happen in Germany, it is not generally used for big league, high tier sports. TVN has created a remote truck workflow where the truck goes to site, signals from the location are sent to TVN’s technical centre in Hanover, and the remote gallery is situated in Cologne, which is also Sportcast’s base of operations.
Vidi is working with Sportcast as a contribution partner to guarantee the required connections and is, “responsible for all the red and blue lines we have to each venue, and the respective facilities, so this means [in Cologne] we also have a remote gallery and all signals to fulfil a production”.
On remote production, Neary says: “This is something we are trying to get greater experience with. If you have a look at the quality and delivery, which is what we stand for, it’s always helpful to get into new concepts, have a look at it, and find out what it means, [including for the] allocating of resources. We will produce two [Bundesliga 2] matches per matchday from now on via remote. This leads to a reduced setup, so instead of the usual OB van plus the supporting truck, now we only have a supporting truck, so we save an OB van.”
The push to try out remote production comes from the DFL and Sportcast, says Neary. “The basic idea behind is just to have a greater alignment with customer preferences and basically to get more flexibility. First the challenge was when we talk about a tier one production, it’s different camera concept and especially a football stadium being a large venue to cover. There are different approaches in the market and we need to have a concept that works.”
Sportcast has conducted various remote production proof-of-concepts in the past, including live tests in both leagues and also at the SportsInnovation 2024. Today Neary says there is more clarity on the workflow and also it is important to understand how all aspects come together to create a production standard.
