Planning process: Behind the broadcast scenes of the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship By Heather McLean Monday, February 17, 2025 - 13:10
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The purpose-built National Athletics Centre stadium hosted the spectacular that is the World Athletic Championships between 19 to 27 August in the heart of Budapest. Next yar it will host the very first World Athletics Ultimate Championship
The World Athletics Ultimate Championship is a groundbreaking new event that will take place for the first time in 2026 in Hungary. Right now, the broadcast production for this prestigious competition for the best of the best athletes is being planned, with Jennifer Angell, head of broadcast operations for the Ultimate, working with World Athletics to bring this spectacle to life.
With a focus on enhancing the viewing experience - both at home as well as in the stadium - the World Athletics Ultimate Championship will showcase a fast moving new format for athletics. Staged every two years to fulfil World Athletics' ambition of having a global championship every year, the event will provide a spectacular conclusion to the summer athletics season in the years when there is no World Athletics Championships.
The inaugural Ultimate will take place over three nights from 11 to 13 September 20 26 at the Budapest National Athletics Centre in Hungary. Created with TV in mind, each session will be under three hours in duration, with athletes representing both themselves and their national teams. The event will be an accelerator for innovation in athletics, using data collected from across the sport, a fresh new use of graphics, and no doubt some amazing camera work.
What makes the Ultimate really exciting is it is invitation only. The best of the best take part to win big; athletes will all be competing for their share of a record-setting prize pot of $10 million, the largest ever offered in track and field.
Planning process
On where World Athletics and Angell are in the planning process right now, Angell explains: It's really interesting. We're treating the event as a stage and everything is going to be scripted. We know it's a three hour show, start to finish, and we know the disciplines and the timings. It's going to be packed back to back events, with a very, very tight schedule. So what we're doing essentially is putting together a working script, minute by minute.
That script will form the backbone of the production, Angell says. It's going to be basically a tool that we'll use to see minute by minute what's happening and where we're going to go next. That's the biggest thing that we're working on right now. And then we're getting all of the data and digital buttoned up.
At a workshop in January with all of the groups involved, a high level production plan was discussed and a first draft created, as well as the first draught of the script which will become the running order of the show. Says Angell: There's been so much work that's been done, so it's really exciting to see it go through to the next phase.
Capturing the action
Despite the packed schedule, the action will only ever happen on two events simultaneously, so viewers will be able to see what is happening on screen.
Comments Angell: We'll be able to capture all the action live on one feed. It's paired down. As it's the Ultimate, we're going in some cases straight into a final with no heats, she notes, as the athletes will have qualified throughout the year of competitions to be invited to take part in the Ultimate. Because of that, it allows us to focus on all these events and give all the events the live attention they deserve. So I think that getting that timetable and script down is going to be probably one of the biggest challenges, so we don't miss any live moment.
Storytelling for the Ultimate will begin before the competition, Angell says, to help develop awareness of the individual athletes and build momentum. We really need to get the story and the delivery and the buildup to the event on all the social media channels and advertising and marketing and all that stuff, adds Angell, as well as allowing the athletes to talk about as well, so we need to provide footage for the athletes.
Fresh slate
The production is starting with a fresh slate completely from scratch, to give this unique event the modern and energised look and approach to the broadcast it deserves. Angell comments: We have pulled everybody together and formed several working groups to progress. We have an event presentation and a fan experience working group, we have a data and digital working group, also a brand and marcomms and of course a production working group.
The technological vision that will drive the broadcast is being pulled together now, says Angell: We had a workshop in September where we were pulling all these ideas together and saying, what do we want? , and fine tuning the vision. We made some really good milestones and we've made some really good decisions, such as we want instant results with timing.
We also want a new look, for the graphics, she continues. A lot of the time you have all this data on screen which is inaccessible to many viewers because there's so much information that's available. We want to tone it down a little bit and make it really accessible to everybody, but also at the same time, make it young and fresh and very visually appealing.
So the plan to break away from what we're used to seeing in athletics on graphics, she notes. There's a lot of new technology that we can tap into and our Data & Digital team is exploring all of that, especially where AR is concerned. I think there's a hole in athletics in that area in particular so we're really leaning into all of the
