Eurosport prepares remote production and Cube studio for Roland-Garros Broadcaster adds presenter, third camera and jib to Cube presentation By Fergal Ringrose, SVG Europe Sunday, September 27, 2020 - 11:34
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Following its postponement in March the main tournament of the delayed 2020 French Open tennis at Roland-Garros commences this Sunday with broadcaster Eurosport adapting its innovative Cube presentation following success at the recent US Open.
Eurosport head of graphics and innovation Alex Dinnin told SVG Europe, In the same way as the US Open, understandably broadcasters have an extremely limited presence on-site this year. We were considering having presenters and experts on-site but given the current climate we decided the safe and sensible choice was to anchor Eurosport's coverage from our dedicated Eurosport Cube studio off-site. On the back of our successful US Open production, it seemed the obvious path to take.
Rafael Nadal beat Dominic Thiem in the men's singles final at the French Open in Paris on June 9, 2019 his 12th Roland Garros title. (Photo by Kyodo News Stills via Getty Images)
Three hundred hours of live coverage from the main Parisian Grand Slam tournament, which of course should have taken place in May, begins from Sunday. Ten courts from the qualification tournament this week, meanwhile, are being screened in over 50 countries and territories on Eurosport 2 and the Eurosport app.
The Tennis Legends podcast, hosted by Mats Wilander, will also return for Roland-Garros featuring some special guests. Eurosport will also have local coverage windows in France, Germany, Netherlands, Russia, Poland, Italy, the United Kingdom and Spain.
Highlighting its commitment to telling local stories, in the lead-up to and during Roland-Garros, Eurosport is also producing additional digital shows in Italy, Denmark and Romania that focus on the fortunes of local players taking part in the tournament.
The industry is clearly experiencing a different production environment compared to previous years,
Behind the scenes at The Cube with presenter Barbara Schett on August 26 during the US Open (Photo by Getty Images/Getty Images)
said Dinnin. However, thanks to our established global remote production capability and innovative use of technology we will deliver an outstanding viewer experience and new depths of storytelling despite our experts and teams being located in different locations around the world.
Our focus is to serve passionate tennis audiences with the best possible experience, as we bring innovations such as the Eurosport Cube to differentiate our offering and maximise fan enhancement on every platform. Our extensive coverage, available however fans choose, is designed to give fans a true 360-degree Roland-Garros experience wherever they are.
Following its launch for the US Open, we are making some tweaks to the Eurosport Cube for Roland-Garros, he said. The look of the Cube, the graphics and animated backgrounds within the studio will be transformed to give the viewer the feeling of Roland-Garros, Paris and the clay courts.
The Eurosport Cube's flexibility and our ability to adapt the environment with relative ease is one of its major advantages. This means we can go from one event or sport to another fairly easily and build a whole new experience.
We have also decided to rotate the Eurosport Cube 45-degrees and it will now face the camera more directly as the viewer sees it. This allows us to add a third camera - one for each expert as well as a jib - which will give us more options and greater flexibility in the content we want to create in the Cube.
In practical terms, Paris is much closer than New York [for the US Open] to the Cube studio in London, whilst we also have a Eurosport production hub in the city. This will make converting data even easier.
From New York we had to convert 59.94 to 50i but we will not have this challenge for Roland-Garros given the reduced distance and our Paris facility operating on 50i. We were delighted at how smoothly our remote production and Eurosport Cube studio ran for the US Open, but this should remove one challenge we had to pay close attention to and overcome, said Dinnin.
From New York we had to convert 59.94 to 50i but we will not have this challenge for Roland-Garros given the reduced distance and our Paris facility operating on 50i
For Roland-Garros fans can enjoy the return of two tennis icons, John McEnroe and Chris Evert, to analyse the biggest and best moments from the Eurosport Cube. They will be joined by Mats Wilander and Barbara Schett anchoring our international coverage from the Cube in London.
Boris Becker and Alex Corretja will also be beamed into the Eurosport Cube studio directly from their local studio locations in Munich and Madrid respectively to give their own expert perspective.
To deliver the coverage in a COVID-secure way, can you give us a picture of what the live production team on the ground at Roland Garros in Paris will look like, compared to last year?
The footprint on-site at Roland-Garros will be minimal, as you would expect, with one to two people at any one time working with the FFT [F d ration Fran aise de Tennis] and host broadcaster representatives to look after the feeds being sent back to our production in London.
Barbara Schett (left) virtually interviews top seed Karolina Pliskova in The Cube during the US Open
From the studio in London we will produce all the segments in between the matches live from the Eurosport Cube with Barbara Schett and Mats Wilander, who will present from the Cube for the first time. Having two experts physically in the Cube will add to the experience but will require some slight re-configuration, ensuring adequate social distancing between them.
The team at Eurosport's production hub
