Fox Sports Heads to Berlin for Euro Final; Wraps Up Massive Month of International Soccer Coverage Network delivers 78 matches from Euros, Copa America to U.S. viewers in four weeks By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director Friday, July 12, 2024 - 8:19 am
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Broadcasting one major soccer tournament is a big enough challenge but Fox Sports this weekend wraps a four-week effort that saw the network broadcast not only 46 Euros matches from across Germany, but 32 Copa America matches from across the United States. This Sunday both tournaments wrap up with their finals, with England playing Spain in Berlin and Columbia playing Argentina in Miami.
Fox Sports has given hardcore soccer fans plenty of reasons to tune in from early in the morning to late at night during the past four weeks.
Kevin Callahan, Fox Sports, VP, field operations and engineering, has been at the center of the planning, managing many of the key relationships with entities like UEFA, CONMEBOL, and HBS, which is producing both of the tournaments for UEFA and CONMEBOL.
Callahan has been based in Leipzig, Germany, where the Euro IBC is located at the Leipziger Messe. This weekend he and many of the production personnel as well as on-air talent are in Berlin, gearing up for an expanded production effort for the Final.
Everybody who has not been at the IBC [in Liepzig] is descending on Berlin, he says. We will have a larger presence on the pitch in terms of talent and we're using the venue kits that we deployed for the first time in Qatar for the 2022 FIFA Men's World Cup.
Fox Sports will have two cameras for pitch side presentations as well as a desk position.
We want to bring the enormity of the final home to viewers in the U.S, he says. Viewership has been fantastic throughout the tournament, and when it got down to the final four teams, I think we would have been happy with any pairing but having England in it is always a good story.
Back with UEFA
Fox Sports has worked with UEFA in the past when it had the rights to the Champions League, but this is the first time Fox has done a large tournament with UEFA.
The quality of the feeds has been to the level that we expect from a large tournament such as this, says Callahan. It's exactly what the editorial staff wants as they can get everything they need.
Fox Sports has been all-in with respect to announcers and commentary as there has been zero off-tube commentary, with announcers and analysts bouncing around Germany. Fox Sports also has three reporters, each out and about across Germany with ENG crews capturing the sights, sounds, and stories surrounding the tournament.
Up until the quarterfinals we've been using LiveU for all of our transmission from the venues and the ENG crews, says Callahan. From the quarters on we deployed our venue kits with customized Joseph Electronics Tote Caddies so we can go from pitch side to the unilateral flash position. We are also using EVS Neuron to do the JPEG-XS transmission back to the States via the IBC with Gigabit fiber provided from the venue by the host.
All signals pass back to the IBC where Callahan says Fox Sports has a scaled down presence. It is there that the larger of the two Fox Sports Jewel flypacks resides and does the technical lifting of taking the SDI feeds from UEFA and getting them back to the States. FOX is using multiple transmission providers to maximize resiliency - NEP Connect and Eurovision for the international segments.
For the first time we're not the largest broadcaster at the IBC as it is primarily a transmission operations hub, ingesting all the signals from UEFA and the venues and then passing them on to Los Angeles, says Callahan. We have makeshift control rooms at the IBC where producers worked until the quarter finals where we started having the producers at the venues with commentators.
Keeping the producers at the IBC allowed for the consistency of match coverage during the hectic group stage to be more uniform from one match to the next.
Back in Pico
The general workflow for both the Euros and the Copa involved sending raw signals back to Pico where they are handled either in existing facilities or Fox Sports Jewel Event flypack which is in the parking lot and augments the transmission receiving capabilities for the control rooms and EVS servers.
The Fox Sports Jewel Event flypack located in the Pico parking lot is actually under the control of the team in Germany. This is made possible by the Media and Broadcast Network Engineering and Architecture team led by Marc Fleury, VP Network Engineering and Architecture.
It's worked out really well and it's just been about making sure we always have someone available given the time zone difference [between Germany and Los Angeles], says Callahan. But from a technology standpoint it's actually worked very well and hasn't missed a beat.
Callahan says the Fox Sports building engineering team in Pico has handled a lot of the Copa responsibility, monitoring the two signals and making sure they're close to the quality expected for a major soccer tournament.
The engineering team, led by VP of Engineering Rob Rees has been doing a fantastic job with that and we also have Technical Director Colby Bourgeois who is part of all of Fox's large shows and is the bridge from production to operations and engineering, adds Callahan.
On the operations side, meanwhile, Fox Sports Senior Production Manager Joey Canipe has been at the helm and managing all of the logistical challenges that are part of a major soccer tournament.
You don't realize until you do one of these how much moving to a different match and a different city every day is so different from something like a football game or even baseball post season, adds Callahan. Wit
