Broadcast Sport
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The 2022 Commonwealth Games were originally awarded in 2015 to Durban then reassigned to the UK after financial constraints hit the South African city.
Birmingham beat Liverpool to the prize, among which is a global audience of 1.5 billion to be trained on the West Midlands over 11 days beginning July 28.
Bidding for the host broadcast contract began in summer of 2019 with the award announced for Sunset + Vine in April 2020.
“The bidding process is really the start of planning for the event,” says David Tippett, Head of Broadcast at Sunset + Vine. “During 2021 we shifted from planning to delivery. All the plans we had at the outset are still essentially the same. This includes contingency planning but you’ve also got to make a decision about how many possible contingencies you really need to think about.”
COVID would be the event wrecker of course but S+V has the advantage when it comes to this project of having seen the uncertainties around the pandemic come and go.
“Because we’ve been at the leading edge of returning to live during the pandemic (producing Premier League with BT Sport) it has given us a good handle on how to approach it. Our approach is to build-in flexibility and adaptation.”
That includes planning for events in stadia that are still being built. While the International Broadcast Centre is safely housed in the NEC, the Alexander Stadium in Perry Barr where the athletics and the main Ceremonies will be held is finishing a £70m upgrade and a £60m aquatics centre is still being built at Sandwell.
Surprisingly perhaps, given the recent drive to remote live, there will be no remote production element at the Commonwealths.
“Everything is very traditional,” says Mark Dennis, Director of Technical Operations, S+V. “Sports will be switched in the trucks on site for the basic world feed which comes back to the IBC for onward distribution.”
There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, planning began pre-Covid. Secondly the economies of scale that usually work in favour of remote producing a series of matches for one sport don’t work with multiple events to produce. The Commonwealth Games Federation doesn’t own a remote production facility and the venues themselves lack the connectivity required to route dozens of feeds back to a central hub. In addition, the UK is blessed with OB facility providers and with no need to fly any additional crew or facilities in, it simply made sense to use the resources at hand.
Timeline are the IBC service provider as well as supplying scanners. Other OBs are from NEP, Cloudbass, Gravity Media and the EMG group (including CTV, Telegenic, Eurolink, Broadcast RF and ASC). Arena was part of the roster until its collapse late last year. Luna Remote Systems are also supplying specialist cameras and Hawk-eye is supplying kit for sports adjudication.
Right sized production
Tippett explains that the role of the host broadcaster for an international event like this goes further than arranging production of live coverage.
“We are responsible for looking after rights holders whether they’re visiting teams who have a presence on site or a remote producer who wants us to look after their production kit at the IBC. We work with the organising committee to try and deliver a sport schedule that works for all rights holders. That means paying very close attention to the chief sports that an audience in New Zealand, Canada, Australia (Seven Network) or the UK (BBC) would be most interested in watching live.”
Australian fans, for example, take a particular interest in swimming; Malaysians are keen on table tennis and the introduction of cricket at the 22nd Games is expected to generate huge interest in India.
More than 370 cameras will be deployed across 19 different sports and 22 OBs, with the additional trucks needed for events like road cycling and time trials. Live coverage alone will tally 1500 hours with additional material including a best of games channel and a highlights package for clipping taking the total production output to 3300 hours. Some 34 feeds will be switched at the IBC (some sports like badminton and table tennis have two games playing simultaneously and require two separate feeds) with 22 the maximum number of feeds required at peak.
It is a far smaller scale event than an Olympics and requires the host to cut its cloth accordingly. The phrase used to describe this is ‘right sized’.
“We were always tasked with coming up with a right sized host for the Commonwealth Games – something that makes it sustainable and secures its long-term future,” Tippett says.
That’s about being relevant to generations not bred on the concept of the Commonwealth and for which an inaugural Esports championships is being piloted with separate branding, medals and organisation. It also means addressing the soaring costs of hosting such an event.
The Commonwealth Games Federation claim that the £967m spent on the Gold Coast 2018 delivered a £1.3bn boost to the Queensland economy while also saying of Birmingham’s £778m budget that “an important element is the significant decrease in direct Games delivery costs compared to Gold Coast." At time of writing the host of the 2026 event has yet to be announced, with Hamilton in Canada a frontrunner.
“The honest truth is that we won’t have the bells and whistles of an Olympics, or the level of specialist cameras or 3D animated replays,” Tippett says. “It will have really high quality, well directed and well produced broadcast coverage which will stack up against any world championship or a T20 on Sky.”
S+V won the RTS award for Best Sports Programme for its coverage of the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup Final. It has previously produced the 2014 Commonwealths from Glasgow in a joint venture with Global Television (now part of NEP) and was part of the consortium with Channel 7 and NEP that hosted Gold Coast (as well as London 2012, the Rio Paralympics, and the 2018 World Equestrian Games).
“We’re not saying ‘look at these new innovations’. Sometimes host broadcasts are a numbers game where there’s this demand to increase the number of cameras or specialist coverage from the previous event.”
The opening ceremony from Birmingham will be produced in UHD HDR but all other coverage will be in 1080p SDR. Again, this is down to demand. If the BBC hadn’t insisted on UHD HDR for the opening it’s possible that decision may not have been made.
“It’s about applying good production to the resources you have. A good director can make an 8-camera football game look like an 18-camera football game. That’s not to say our camera specs are small by any means. They are World Championship level.”
Dennis adds, “For many of the Commonwealth sports like bowls, athletics, rugby 7s, women’s T20, it is business as usual for us.”
What has changed, accelerated by Covid, is that more rights holders want to cover the games from a distance, sending fewer crew and facilities to venues. It is down to the host to ensure that rights holder needs are catered for. This includes producing more content than ever before for broadcasters to tailor coverage as well as making it all accessible to remote production.
“We’ve had lots of discussion about connectivity and distribution of feeds whether live, delayed or on-demand,” Tippett says. “There’s huge complexity. One broadcaster might want to produce using one remote model and another will have a different version. It’s finding the common ground that works for everybody based on how technology has changed.”
While the BBC, Supersport (South Africa), Sky NZ, and Seven Network have booked space in the IBC, S+V is making an array of content available. This includes a 24/7 channel covering the best of the day’s sport and up to 42 simultaneous feeds including beauty cams. Rights holders can purchase access to a package of pre-shot feature material and additional clips stored in the IBC and available via EVS IPWeb.
Birmingham has committed to delivering a carbon neutral Games of which the production is a part. S+V has focussed on how it gets people to and from site, how they travel around Games venues and how it can reduce power generators so that they don’t burn round the clock.
There is also a commitment to local spend and leaving behind a positive impact. S+V’s contribution includes training over 150 crew (10% of the total 1500 production personnel) staffed from the West Midlands. Many are already involved with other S+V productions.
The initiative addresses the lack of diversity in the TV industry with opportunities for BAME trainees to be given work experience in the run up to the Games with some being paid for jobs at the event. All S+V’s OB partners and suppliers are taking part and providing training opportunities in a mix of roles including production coordinator, camera assistants, loggers, edit assistants, live gallery assistants, audio engineers and floor managers.
“It’s a win for everyone because there is a crew shortage in the UK and it has been a challenge to ramp up to the 1600 personnel we need; but we got there and now we’re looking forward to it."
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