SVG Europe
One of the biggest news stories of last year was the
announcement by the English Premier League that it would be taking its media
operations business in-house. Although this does not come into force until
August 2026, the move would seem to end the 20-year partnership between the
Premier League and IMG, operating as Premier League Productions.
article here
Each league will have its own set of commercial and
logistics reasons for operating the host broadcast as it does but taking a view
of how other major soccer leagues are managing their domestic and international
production and distribution it would seem that the EPL is no pioneer in keeping
operations closer to the chest but neither is it a laggard.
Below is a breakdown of how some key leagues operate
Spain
Host
The host broadcast operation for the premier league LaLiga
EA Sports and second division LaLiga Hypermotion for 2023/4-2026/7 season is
managed by LaLiga which hires Mediapro the official production company.
In 2015 a decision was made to centralise the LaLiga AV
rights marketing and commercialisation. This sets the basis and rules for how
LaLiga income is distributed and also how to enhance income with improved
production value.
LaLiga domestic rights are held by Telefonica until the end
of the 2026/27 season which shows five games per week via Movistar+. This
covers 55 per cent of matches with DAZN airing the remaining matches in
sub-licencing deal with Telefonica.
Coverage and facilities
Mediapro, based out of Barcelona, is in charge of the host
production and uses its own OB facilities. This includes 380 live streamed and
broadcast matches in La Liga EA Sports per year and 468 matches of LaLiga
Hypermotion (462 regular season and 6 playoffs).
LaLiga EA Sports has its graphics and comms centralised with
the rest of production performed on site. Eight LaLiga Hypermotion games are
produced fully remotely.
Standard LaLiga EA Sports games feature 17 cameras and
Hypermotion matches are covered by 13 cameras. Top matches like El Classico
Barcelona v Real Madrid are covered with a 22-camera plan. All are standardised
on HD 1080p.
VAR
The Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) manages VAR across La
Liga and Copa del Rey cup competition and contracts the services to Mediapro.
This contract runs from four years to 2027-28 and replaces Hawk-Eye which held
the contract since 2019-2024. Hawk-eye does provide semi-automatic offside
detection technology (SAOT) for the 2024-25-27/28 season.
France
Host
The French premier division is administered by
the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP). Ligue 1 is host broadcast by
HBS in continuation of a longstanding partnership with the league’s rights
holders. This season those rights holders changed over from Amazon and Canal+
to DAZN and BeIN Sports which sees DAZN airing eight matches per round and BeIN
Sports showcasing one primetime game totally 308 matches per year. The deal for
rights and host broadcaster runs until 2029.
Ligue 2 matches are exclusively broadcast by BeIN
Sports which secured five years of domestic broadcasting rights ending in
2029. BeIN Sports is also producing all Ligue 2 games with HBS acting on
behalf the league performing venue management, archive management and quality
control.
Coverage and Facilities
HBS contracts the majority of its facilities from AMP with
additional from NEP Belgium. The contribution network is provided and managed
since 2019 by Orange Events. The network is fully redundant with hitless
switching. All matches are at-the-venue productions although HBS is
working on hybrid remote solutions and operates an MCR which has connectivity
to the stadia.
The standard match day format since the turn of the year is
HD 1080P from 14 cameras ranging to 25 depending on the match and includes
aerial, Steadicam and cine-style cameras.
VAR
Centralised in Paris and managed by LFP with HBS providing
technical support.
Denmark
Host
Matchday Production. This is an inhouse entity, new for the
2024-25 season, set up by Superligaen, the company owned by the 12 clubs
competing in Denmark’s top-flight football league Superliga, and production
company DMC Productions. Matchday Production is an independent company shared
between Superligaen A/S (49% share) and DMC (51%).
Matchday Production produces all 800 matches a year live
across 3F Superliga, NordicBet Liga, Oddset Pokalen, 2nd Division,
and 3rd Division. The domestic rights holders are TV2 and
Viaplay.
Superligaen handles rights and managing relations with the
broadcasters and clubs. DMC manages the technical set-up, production and
operations.
Coverage and facilities
Matchday Production operates a remote production centralised
in the Matchday HQ in Copenhagen. Its four control rooms are able to handle
several matches simultaneously.
A standard Superliga match is covered by six cameras in
1080p with an ambition to deliver HDR in 2025.
All 55 of Denmark’s stadiums are connected to the Copenhagen
MCR, via a contribution ring. The contribution ring was procured by Matchday
Production to give them full control of the network. It features 10Gbit links
to each stadia and 100Gbit lines to the broadcast centre.
Germany’s Broadcast Solutions helped DMC create the
Copenhagen HQ and also built four vehicles and four flypacks for the on-site
facilities.
The main facility is equipped with GV Kula switchers,
Kayenne control surfaces and GV vision mixers, audio consoles from Lawo and a
MediorNet Horizon processing platform from Riedel. EVS provides XT servers as
well as its Xeebra platform to handle VAR. Net Insight’s Nimbra application
enables remote contribution. Graphics is provided by Danish company
TV-graphics. The network provider is Danish telco TDC.
Germany
Host
Sportcast, based in Cologne and a wholly owned subsidiary of
the Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL), has been host broadcaster for all matches in
the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2, as well as the Supercup, since 2006-07.
In that time it has produced over 12,500 live games, around
700 a season, led by managing director Alexander Günther, who has been there
since the beginning.
Coverage
Bundesliga is produced in UHD HDR as is the Supercup.
Bundesliga 2 is a 1080p production. Standard Bundesliga camera plans are 19-21
cameras ramping to 29+ for finals like Supercup including ACS and drones.
Typical Bundesliga 2 matches are 11 cameras.
Alongside production of the TV base
signal, Sportcast coordinates the contribution and international
distribution of the live TV signal in over 200 countries. In addition, it
provides weekly live games and highlights shows in English, with international
graphics via satellite. To achieve this, the video signals of the Bundesliga
and Bundesliga 2 are broadcast via a fibre optic network operated by Sportcast
connected to 36 stadiums.
Facilities
Sportcast hires OB facilities from a number of providers
including TVN Live Production, Skyline, Studio Berlin, HD Broadcast, TopVision
(part of TVN group) and Triofilm. As part of the provision, Sportcast hires
around 30000 crew including directors per year.
Sportcast is planning to transition to remote production
starting with two games per matchday in Bundesliga 2 from 2025-26 season. It
has trialled technologies including Grass Valley AMPP and Evertz DreamCatcher
system.
Sportcast manages the league’s Archive Media Hub itself in
Cologne. This is a central content hub which ingests all feeds and delivers
live, non-live, social and content for documentaries.
VAR
Based in Cologne, run by Sportec Solutions another DFL
subsidiary.
U.S.
Host
Major League Soccer Productions with Apple have
teamed to produce all MLS coverage over the ten years of Apple’s $250m a year
($2.5bn total) deal with the league starting in the 2023-24 season. MLS
and Apple will produce 950 matches a year including 493 regular
season games plus the entire postseason; all 77 matches in the Leagues Cup (a
competition between US, Canadian and Mexican soccer leagues) and around 100
matches each for MLS Next Pro, the developmental league, and amateur academy
consortium MLS Next.
Facilities
MLS has worked in various capacities with NEP for 22 years
and IMG for a decade and these are its main partners for MLS Season Pass.
IMG manage production and distribution of live match
and studio who content. It oversees editorial tone, look, and feel; production
enhancements; producer/director staffing; and talent logistics.
NEP Group oversees broadcast operations providing crew and
overseeing all technical aspects including provision of all mobile units; build
of control rooms; remote and centralised production support; commercial
integrations; infrastructure and systems management.
Coverage
Every match is produced onsite with at least one NEP
supplied scanner in 1080p with 5.1 Dolby audio and in both English and Spanish commentary.
In addition to carrying every game, Apple’s MLS Season Pass
streaming service features MLS 360 a 6-hour long whip-around show, as
well as pregame show MLS Countdown and MLS Wrap-up — all
produced from the league’s production centre in New York City.
14 live matches every Saturday and some Tuesdays and
Wednesdays are produced and switched from onsite mobile units. Although MLS
NEXT events are produced onsite, MLS NEXT Pro events are captured onsite,
backhauled to one of NEP’s connected facilities, where graphics are integrated,
announcers call the events off monitors and/or via remote announce kits, and
the broadcast is assembled and encoded for distribution. Highlight clips
produced from remote EVS servers direct to VOD are managed on MediaBank, NEP’s MAM.
NEP also works with MLS Broadcasting to produce broadcasts
for MLS linear partners Fox and Univision.
Other technical providers include Vizrt graphics, official
MLS data distribution partner IMG Arena, network manager AT&T,
data services leader Deltatre and data analysis company Sportec
Solutions.
VAR
MLS operates video reviews from a centralised location for
all matches from Hawk-Eye’s headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.
U.K English
Football League
Host production
IMG and Sky for five years until the end of the 2028-29
season for Sky Bet EFL, Carabao Cup and Bristol Street Motors Trophy. The EFL
comprises 72 clubs over three leagues below the Premiership; Championship,
League One & League Two). That totals 1698 matches per year. IMG produces
all of them; 866 matches per season for Sky with the remaining balance produced
by the pay-TV broadcaster for its main channel output or Sky Sports+; and 832
fixtures for distribution outside of the UK via EFL rights holders Pitch
International and Relevent Sports. IMG is also producing a free-to-air
terrestrial highlights programme for ITV.
Facilities and coverage
IMG produce every match from the EFL production centre at
Stockley Park in West London having upgraded the cabling at all 72 stadiums to
increase camera output. 6 cameras cover Championship matches (seven with the
Hawk-Eye goal technology feed), four cameras in League One and two cameras in
League Two.
200+ feeds on a regular matchday travel to Stockley Park
over an NEP Connect backbone.
FlatBack4 Productions supplies IMG with camera operators and
cameras.
Hyper Studios is the graphics supplier for IMG’s EFL output,
making use of OPTA data.
Every game potentially has three to four commentators (home
bias, away bias, clubs own and a neutral commentator provided by IMG).
There is no VAR in the EFL though the system has been used
in League Cup semi-finals and finals.
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