Inside DAZN's host broadcast of the UEFA Women's Champions League Final By George Bevir
Friday, May 24, 2024 - 09:00
Print This Story
Dave Wade, DAZN head of football and multisport with Jemma Archer, DAZN senior producer women's football
When Barcelona takes on Lyon in the UEFA Women's Champions League (UWCL) Final in Bilbao on Saturday (25 May), it will be a clash between two of the most successful teams in the competition's history as well as the culmination of another season of comprehensive coverage of women's club football for DAZN.
Holders Barcelona will play in their fourth straight final, aiming to become the third team to win three titles. Meanwhile, in four competitive meetings so far including two finals record eight-time winners Lyon have won on every occasion.
I've been working in football around the world for a few years now, and this is one of the best stadiums I've been to it's purpose built for TV
For DAZN, which has positioned itself as the global home of women's football', the UWCL final provides the perfect opportunity to showcase the streaming platform's approach to covering the top tier women's football.
Every year, it's got bigger and better, says Dave Wade, DAZN head of football and multisport. For this particular match, we start off with our mantra that we have for every single match, which is we want to tell every story, cover every single angle and convey the live excitement and atmosphere inside the stadium to viewers, whether they're watching on their phone, their tablet, or in their living rooms on the TV.
It was back in July 2021 that DAZN acquired global rights to broadcast the UWCL and was awarded host broadcaster duties for the next four seasons to 2025. It was also the first time UEFA had centralised all Women's Champions League matches globally. In a bid for further exposure and growth, DAZN entered into a partnership with YouTube to make the competition live and free for fans around the world for the first time.
For the final, as well as producing its own unilateral coverage, DAZN is host broadcaster for 13 sub-licensees from across Europe plus Brazil and Mexico, each with their own unilateral presentation positions.
Supporting the UEFA Women's Champions League: Dave Wade and Jemma Archer
To support its production, DAZN appointed Mediapro as technical services provider. Says Wade: We looked at a range of companies and considered who's best placed to deliver what we need, and in this case, it was it was a fairly easy decision to go with Mediapro with the expertise that they've got, plus they know Bilbao and the San Mam s.
They also have a predominantly female crew (including host broadcast director Claudia Santos) which is an example of how forward-thinking they are as an organisation. We always want the best person for the job; there is no tokenism. And we don't patronise in our coverage. The game has grown up sufficiently that it's judged on its own merits.
Working alongside Wade is DAZN production manager Courtney Pascuad, plus Jemma Archer, DAZN's senior producer of women's football. Says Archer: We feel quite strongly that what you won't see in our broadcasts is 15 minutes dedicated to the rise of the women's game, because we've heard that a million times before. It's treated as football in a pure sense. This is a match, between the best players and our job is to tell the story.
Production planning for the final started in the summer, straight after the 2023 final in Eindhoven. The first site visit to Bilbao was in September of last year. Wade says: With UEFA, we spent a day looking at every single aspect of the stadium, whether that's the camera positions, the presentation positions, where the tunnels are everything that will help us to tell the story and all the subplots .
They considered using a box in one of the upper stands for the DAZN presentation position but it was deemed too far removed from the action so instead, presenters and pundits will be pitch side with no furniture' between them and the viewers. Viewers will see the players walking immediately behind and after the match, they'll come over to our press position and talk to us, so it's really embedded within the day itself, says Wade.
To tell the story of the final, the multilateral camera plan will be comprised of 17 cameras a significant uplift on UWCL group stage games, which typically have between three and five cameras to cover the action.
The Spidercam was already plugged in at the San Mam s, a great example of how suited the stadium is to broadcast, says Wade. I've been working in football around the world for a few years now, and this is one of the best stadiums I've been to; everything is catered for. It's an amazing arena, with every conceivable angle has been thought about when it was designed. It's purpose built for TV.
DAZN Visa FanZone
DAZN senior producer women's football Jemma Archer will work on DAZN's preview show airing on Friday and the integration of second screen experience DAZN Visa FanZone, available via DAZN in more than 200 countries including Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain. Functionality includes interactive features such as quizzes, live chat, and viewer polls - allowing fans to engage with the content and each other in real-time. These social and interactive elements are designed to add further dimension to the coverage.
Says Archer: We've had 72 million impressions, 890,000 interactions with fans from the quarterfinals, so it's been an amazingly successful initiative because it's the first time that the DAZN women's football team has worked on that with a brand like Visa.
It's something you can't replicate with a linear
North America Stories
22/07/2026
Among other tweaks to coverage, the broadcaster added announce positions in the ...
22/07/2026
The Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) has reported a sharp acceleration in Australia's sportstech sector, with revenue growth rising from 10% in...
22/07/2026
From a retrofitted broadcast bus to packed Match Day Live! events, Bennett detai...
22/07/2026
TMRW Sports has named Brendan Donohue as President, Flag Football, where he will lead the company's professional flag football business in partnership with ...
22/07/2026
Stephen Arnold Music (SAM) designed and produced soundtracks for nine projection...
22/07/2026
Harmonic has announced a $25,000 donation to Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) fo...
22/07/2026
Telemundo has announced it has acquired from UC3 exclusive U.S. Spanish-language...
22/07/2026
The Rest Is Football, hosted by Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Micah Richards, ...
22/07/2026
Sports Studio has announced a partnership with TheSoul Group to distribute Free ...
22/07/2026
Daktronics has concluded its 2026 High School Video Summit, a two-day hybrid event combining virtual sessions with hands-on host school visits across the countr...
22/07/2026
FOR-A America will exhibit at the MMCA Show in Pensacola, Florida (July 21-24), marking the company's first appearance at the house of worship AV event. FOR...
22/07/2026
The New York Yankees have selected Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) to connect Ya...
22/07/2026
Calrec will exhibit at IBC 2026 (Stand 8.C47) with demonstrations of its IP-native audio ecosystem built around the Argo console range, and will announce two ne...
22/07/2026
Solid State Logic has announced the appointment of Algam EKO as its distributor for SSL large format consoles in Italy, covering the Live, Broadcast, and Studio...
22/07/2026
FloSports has announced the launch of the FloSports Channel, a free ad-supported streaming channel premiering on Prime Video in the U.S. on July 21. The channel...
22/07/2026
Banana Ball TV (BTV), the broadcast operation of the Savannah Bananas, has insta...
22/07/2026
SiriusXM and Audacy have announced an agreement bringing 42 Audacy sports, news, and talk stations from 29 U.S. markets to SiriusXM. Twenty-three Audacy sports ...
22/07/2026
The collaboration produced more than 500 short-form videos across four cities th...
22/07/2026
At 2,600 sq. ft., the new home of digital content houses a main studio, podcast space, and an auxiliary control room
NFL franchises are accelerating their prod...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Proven managed IP solution helps broadcasters confidently navigate the future of broadcast distribution
LTN announces it has completed successful satellite-to-...
22/07/2026
Today, Chaos announced V-Ray 7, update 4, eliminating the need for asset conversions and tool switching, which slow down media and entertainment pipelines. Arti...
22/07/2026
An AI playground for the Project Indigo camera app
Marc Levoy July 22, 2026
0 Comments
At left is the user interface of our Playground, running on an ...
22/07/2026
Custom Consoles announces the completion of a large technical furniture project for Radio T l vision Suisse (RTS) at the networks recently inaugurated productio...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Culver City, CA, July 21, 2026 3D streaming infrastructure provider Miris today announced glTF intake, including the binary .glb form, to its spatial streamin...
22/07/2026
Documentary Lo Invisible Captured with Blackmagic PYXIS 6K
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
Camera's versatile design allowed filmmakers to c...
22/07/2026
AAF Bridge converts AAF and XML Timelines to Ableton Live - and back
Jerome Gardier July 21, 2026
0 Comments
A two-way converter for macOS and Windows...
22/07/2026
From Class to Concert: Explore a Student-Led Production of David Bowies Work Thr...
22/07/2026
Before a healthcare robot can be useful in the real world, it has to learn how the physical world pushes back. Anatomy varies. Instruments bend, press, slip and...
21/07/2026
With winners Spain having already paraded the World Cup trophy through Madrid in front of millions of fans and the dust now settling on an epic tournament of th...
21/07/2026
In a time of disarray in regional sports broadcasting, the league will provide c...
21/07/2026
When NEP designed one of its largest recurring mobile production unit fleets for PGA TOUR
coverage, the leading media services provider faced a familiar challe...
21/07/2026
Warner Bros. Discovery's unbroken lead is interrupted as sports and live mus...
21/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/07/2026
Across the TV and streaming ecosystem, industry players face mounting pressure to do more with less. They must simplify operations, protect premium content and ...
21/07/2026
Tuxera, a leading prover of quality-assured file systems and networking technologies, is bringing its latest advances in connectivity performance to the media w...
21/07/2026
COW Jobs: Apple Motion Expert for Custom FCP Rigged Graphics Package
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
HIRING: Apple Motion Expert for Custom FCP ...
21/07/2026
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, will use its presence at IBC2026 (stand 7.A01, Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September) to...
21/07/2026
Calrec will be located in Hall 8, on Stand C47
Beyond bigger
For years, broadcast facilities were built around one assumption: provision for the biggest pro...
21/07/2026
Pebble, the leading automation, content management and integrated channel specialist, will discuss its future-facing developments for the new generation of medi...
21/07/2026
nxtedition returns to IBC2026 with its consolidated production platform, showing how scripting, editing, graphics, AI-assisted tools and automation can work wit...
21/07/2026
C2PA content signing helps broadcasters, public institutions, and publishers give audiences a verifiable record of where their video content came from and how i...
21/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
Inside DAZN's host broadcast of the UEFA Women's Champions League Final By George Bevir 
