Live from London: EPCR takes over Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for European rugby finals weekend By Fergal Ringrose
Tuesday, May 28, 2024 - 09:46
Print This Story
Matthis Lebel scores what proved to be Stade Toulousain's match-winning try during last Saturday's epic final against Leinster Rugby [photo: EPCR]
The Hollywoodbets Sharks from Durban overcame Gloucester Rugby to take the Challenge Cup on Friday evening (May 24) and Stade Toulousain edged out Leinster Rugby after extra time on Saturday afternoon (May 25) to lift the Champions Cup at the European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) Finals Weekend in Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
In my eyes this is the best stadium in Europe today, EPCR head of broadcast and media rights Carl Bengtsson told SVG Europe on Friday morning. We were supposed to come here some years ago and then COVID hit. The stadium then was brand new, and that would have been an event in itself as people would have come out of curiosity to see the stadium.
But operationally speaking maybe it's a good thing because the stadium team know their stadium a lot better now, they know what they can and cannot do, and I realise now that going to a brand new stadium would probably have been a bit challenging. We had this situation in Lyon a couple of years ago, when the football stadium was brand new; it's complicated to go to a new stadium.
So we were lucky in a way, and it's still the top stadium in Europe. All the facilities for hospitality are top of the line. It's quite easy for broadcasters to rig camera positions as the stadium had been designed with TV in mind. All the camera positions are catered for - obviously for football but we can still use them for rugby. You have a lot of positions on the gantry, commentators have a lot of space, it's completely pre-cabled as well which makes such a difference to older venues where you have to cable everything.
It's a very easy stadium to use, and the local team here is fantastic. They know how to host events outside of their own football team. We know it's an NFL stadium, and they're really working to be a great venue for anyone to come here and play.
The NFL have helped us as well as the team here is used to different requirements and routines. Sometimes you go to football stadiums and they say this is the way we've always done it' and they're not willing to change. Here they are happy to give us a hand and facilitate.
Carl Bengtsson, head of broadcast and media rights, European Professional Club Rugby
Buzz 16 leads production effort for EPCR host
Last year in Dublin saw a a complex production facilities situation with two separate host broadcasters, BT Sport and RT , for the Challenge Cup and Champions Cup finals on consecutive days. This year TNT Sports - the successor to BT Sport and Eurosport UK following the former's acquisition by Warner Bros. Discovery in 2022 - was EPCR's host broadcaster for both finals in London, with Buzz 16 providing the production team.
This time around TNT Sports is hosting both finals, which makes things a lot easier as they are in charge, said Bengtsson. And then we have add-ons, obviously, for the five other broadcasters present. On the English-speaking side we have RT and ITV for free-to-air in Ireland and the UK. And then we have France T l visions for French free-to-air and BeIN Sports for pay TV.
We also have ESPN for LATAM, who are here mostly to do interviews with the Argentinians playing for Gloucester and Toulouse. There's a huge interest in our competition in Latin America, and they have come to the quarter finals, the semi-finals and now to both finals this weekend. That's the general set-up, so it's quite busy.
The Buzz 16 team has been here already this season, covering the Saracens v Harlequins game in the Premiership in March. Obviously it's a bigger operation this time around, and they have gone with a very good camera plan for both games so we're well covered. We never take it less seriously for the Challenge Cup; we respect both competitions in the same way.
Before the merger Sunset+Vine provided the BT Sport production for our games and the Premiership as well. Then it changed to Buzz 16 and a lot of Sunset+Vine staff went over to Buzz 16, so it's familiar ground for us. They're still contracting EMG for facilities so it was extremely reassuring to know that we were dealing with people we knew with EMG behind them and we knew for sure they would do a great job.
ITV Sport and TNT Sports are working with EMG. RT only have a small add-on so they use facilities through EMG as well, and then both French broadcasters have a historical relationship with NEP Ireland, working with them for many years - and this makes things a lot easier here on-site as you basically have two facilities teams in EMG and NEP.
Richard Wright was unit manager for EMG and Jonathan Endley for NEP Ireland. NEP had two trucks on-site, one each for France T l visions and BeIN Sports, with seven iso cameras for each broadcaster pitch-side (one a radio camera for France TV) enabling pre-, half-time and post-game unilateral show presentation.
Gari Jenkins is executive producer for Buzz 16 and Dom McGuire is the production manager, continued Bengtsson. He's been the one coordinating these finals since we first came here almost a year ago, working on this project and the main man overseeing all the different needs from all broadcasters. It's a lot of responsibility, and he has done an incredible job.
You know what it's like; broadcasters all have their needs and they change their minds last-minute on everything from camera positions to commentary positions, catering, partner accreditation it's not an easy job to coordinate all this. And meanwhile Dom has to take care of his ma
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
03/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has opened a docket for comments on the proposed $6.2 billion Nexstar acquisition for Tegna and set deadlines f...
03/12/2025
MILAN, Italy Brightcove has released seven new features designed to expand global reach, improve audience engagement, enhance live-streaming quality and streaml...
03/12/2025
NEW YORK Great American Media said it plans to launch Pure Flix Familia, a dedicated Spanish-language platform, in 2026....
03/12/2025
SOUTHPORT, Conn. Main Street Sports Group has announced that the FanDuel Sports Network app is now available directly on Vizio and on smart TVs with Vizio OS. T...
03/12/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced that Telia, the second-largest telecom operator in Norway, is modernizing its broadband network with the company's c...
03/12/2025
GREEN BAY, Wis. Sinclair said Jay Zollar, vice president and general manager of WLUK-WCWF here, will retire Dec. 31 after 26 years running the stations. Station...
02/12/2025
Case Study: How Mid-Atlantic Sports Network Moved to All-IP Distribution in 60 D...
02/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Lee Corso, Coach, Commentator, FirebrandBy Ken Kerschbaumer
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 7:00 am
Print This Story | S...
02/12/2025
SVG All-Stars: Dan Nabors, Senior Director, Remote Engineering, TNT SportsThe veteran tech leader is helping guide Warner Bros. Discovery's at-home' re...
02/12/2025
National Lacrosse League Opens Season With New Cloud-Based Official Replay-Revie...
02/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: The Cinematic Look in Live Production - Bridging Aesthetic...
02/12/2025
SVG India Announces Advisory Board; JioStar's Prashant Khanna Named ChairmanBy Ken Kerschbaumer
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 11:15 am
Print This Story |...
02/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: New AI Production Tools Workshop' Features ESPN, F...
02/12/2025
Written and directed by Hailey Gates, Atropia won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival....
02/12/2025
The lightweight and highly portable CORVUS-RAVEN, recently demonstrated at the V...
02/12/2025
The lightweight, rugged Panther 2 tri-band VSAT delivers high-speed data communications for Internet, VPN connectivity and video transmission over commercial an...
02/12/2025
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...
02/12/2025
NGID volunteers in the United States
NGID volunteers in Mexico
NGID volunteers in India
NGID volunteers in Spain
NGID volunteers in Australia
NGID voluntee...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has issued a reminder that stations in DMAs 111 through 120 must implement its audio descrip...
02/12/2025
SAN DIEGO Sony Electronics today introduced the Alpha 7 V (ILCE-7M5), the fifth generation of its Alpha 7 full-frame mirrorless lineup, powered by the newly dev...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has opened a docket for comments on Nexstar Media Group's proposed $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna and se...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The National Association of Broadcasters has added a trio of media executives, Veronica Rodriguez, Matt Schnaars and Jeff Warshaw, to its board of di...
02/12/2025
MILAN, Italy Brightcove has released seven new features designed to expand global reach, improve audience engagement, enhance live-streaming quality and streaml...
02/12/2025
BCNEXXT, the developers of the advanced playout platform Vipe, today announced a new Service Provider Partner agreement with NPC Media, the Australian managed p...
02/12/2025
DPA Microphones today announces the immediate availability of its new N-Series Digital Wireless Microphone System for customers throughout the U.S. In addition ...
02/12/2025
Hiltron Communications reports a well attended and successful Space Tech Expo exhibition, held at the Messe Bremen from Tuesday November 18 through Thursday Nov...
02/12/2025
The beginning of September saw Riverfire by Australian Retirement Trust, in association with Channel 9 and Triple M, kick off the 2025 Brisbane Festival in spec...
02/12/2025
SGM Lighting is pleased to announce an exciting new partnership with ACT Entertainment, under which ACT will serve as the exclusive distributor for SGM's ne...
02/12/2025
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that Telia, the second largest telecom operator in Norway, is modernizing its broadband network with the company's i...
02/12/2025
European cloud data protection specialist Keepit is expanding its sales network in the DACH region and has gained TIM AG, one of the leading value-added distrib...
02/12/2025
Featured products at ISE 2026
This year s ISE 2026 theme "Push Beyond" reflects Calrec s direction of travel. The company is dedicated to supporting the AV an...
02/12/2025
Czech Television, the national public broadcaster, has deployed one of the largest LiveU live production projects in the region for live sports and news coverag...
02/12/2025
Test & measurement innovator, Leader Electronics, has announced the release of v8.2 software for its ZEN and ZEN-W Series, bringing advanced cinematic camera se...
02/12/2025
Global provider of video streaming software and services, Accedo, and OTT platform provider, Magine Pro, have signed a binding agreement to carve out and merge ...
02/12/2025
With proven success in broadcast, OTT, and content supply chains, K.S Avinash set to scale Skandha's service-first approach across APAC
Skandha Media Servi...
02/12/2025
AJA Video Systems has joined the RAVENNA community, a network of partners devoted to advancing the RAVENNA standard for distributing real-time audio over intern...
02/12/2025
HUNT VALLEY, Md. Sinclair and its wholly-owned subsidiary One Media Technologies have released a new report focused on how ATSC 3.0, the IP-based NextGen TV sta...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has issued a reminder that stations in DMAs 111 through 120 must implement its audio descrip...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON Members of the Advanced Television Systems Committee have elected four industry veterans to three-year terms on the organization's board of direc...
02/12/2025
A new survey from S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan highlights how important social media is for younger consumers, with Gen Z spending 5.1 hours a day on so...
02/12/2025
Faculty Notes: Fall/Winter 2025 Recent accomplishments, releases, and events by Berklee faculty.
December 1, 2025
By
Editorial Staff
The cast of Kind of M...
02/12/2025
Today, Mistral AI announced the Mistral 3 family of open-source multilingual, multimodal models, optimized across NVIDIA supercomputing and edge platforms.
M...
02/12/2025
Ring In The Holidays With Our Biggest Sale Ever On Ivory II Pianos!From now until December 31st, you can save 50% or more on every Ivory II piano and collection...
02/12/2025
Back to All News
Made in America: How Stranger Things' Electrified the US Economy
Entertainment
02 December 2025
GlobalUnited States
Link copied to cl...
02/12/2025
Back to All News
Culinary Class Wars' Season 2 Trailer Teases New Rules, R...
02/12/2025
--
The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the International Telecommunication Unio...
02/12/2025
Harmonic's cOS Platform Will Redefine Subscribers' Quality of Experience, Lowering Churn SAN JOSE, Calif. - Dec. 2, 2025 - Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today...
02/12/2025
At AWS re:Invent, NVIDIA and Amazon Web Services expanded their strategic collab...
Live from London: EPCR takes over Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for European rugby finals weekend By Fergal Ringrose 
