In or out? Which major football leagues are leading or following the EPL in taking production in-house? By Adrian Pennington
Friday, January 17, 2025 - 10:11
Print This Story
Stockley Park
One of the biggest news stories of 2024 was the announcement by the English Premier League (EPL) that it would be taking its media operations business in-house. Although this does not come into force until August 2026, the move (thus far unconfirmed officially) would seem to end the 20-year partnership between the Premier League and IMG, operating as Premier League Productions.
Each football league worldwide has its own commercial and logistical reasons for operating the host broadcast as it does whether in-house, outsourced, or a combination of the two. Taking a look at how other major football leagues are managing their domestic and international production and distribution, it would seem that the EPL is no pioneer in keeping its operations closer to its chest, but neither is it a laggard. Below is a breakdown of how some key leagues operate.
Spain Host
The host broadcast operation for LaLiga and LaLiga 2 for 2023/24-2026/27 season is managed by LaLiga which hires Mediapro as its official production company. In 2015 a decision was made to centralise LaLiga's AV rights marketing and commercialisation. This sets the basis for how LaLiga income is distributed and how income can be enhanced by improved production values.
LaLiga domestic rights are held by Telef nica, which shows five games per week via Movistar , until the end of the 2026/27 season. This covers 55 per cent of matches, with DAZN airing the remaining matches in a sub-licencing deal with Telef nica.
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 LaLiga matches per year and 468 LaLiga 2 matches (462 regular season and six playoffs). LaLiga has centralised graphics and comms, with the rest of production performed on site. Eight LaLiga 2 games are produced fully remotely.
Standard LaLiga games feature 17 cameras second division matches are covered by 13 cameras. Top matches like El Cl sico between Barcelona and Real Madrid are covered with a 22-camera plan. All are standardised on HD 1080p.
VAR
The Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) manages VAR across LaLiga and the Copa del Rey competition and contracts the services to Mediapro. The current contract runs until 2027/28 and replaces Hawk-Eye which held the contract between 2019 and 2024. Hawk-Eye is providing semi-automatic offside technology (SAOT) for the 2024/25-2027/28 season.
France Host
Ligue 1, the French premier division, is administered by the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP). Host Broadcast Services (HBS) acts as host broadcaster, 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. DAZN is airing eight matches per week and BeIN Sports is showcasing one primetime game per week, totalling 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 of the league, performing venue management, archive management and quality control.
Coverage and facilities
HBS contracts the majority of its facilities from AMP Visual with additional from NEP Belgium. The contribution network has been provided and managed by Orange Events since 2019. 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 stadiums.
Since the turn of the year, the standard match day format is now HD 1080P from between 14 and 25 cameras depending on the match. This includes aerial, Steadicam and cine-style cameras.
VAR
VAR is centralised in Paris and managed by LFP with HBS providing technical support.
Denmark Host
The host broadcaster is Matchday Production, an in-house entity new for the 2024/25 season. It was 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 produces all 800 matches a year live across Superliga, the 1st Division, Oddset Pokalen, 2nd Division and 3rd Division. The domestic rights holders are TV2 and Viaplay.
Superligaen handles rights and manages 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 stadium 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 Grass Valley Kula switchers, Kayenne control surfaces and Grass Valley vision mixers, audio consoles from Lawo and a MediorNet Horizon processing platform from Riedel. EVS provided XT servers as well as its Xeebra platform to handle VAR. Net Insight's Nimbra application enables remote contribution. Graphics are provided by the Danish company
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
In or out? Which major football leagues are leading or following the EPL in taking production in-house? By Adrian Pennington 
