Host Broadcast Services Drives Transcontinental Transmission, Production for CONCACAF Gold Cup Game Creek trucks, GCV Anywhere workflow handle 10-venue, 31-match tourney By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Friday, July 30, 2021 - 10:29 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
A summer loaded with international soccer tournaments will see the crowning of another continental champion on Sunday when the U.S. and Mexico meet in the CONCACAF Gold Cup Final (8:30 p.m. ET, FS1, Univision, TUDN) at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. The match caps a comprehensive, month-long production and operational effort marked by innovations in workflow, live video, and digital-content delivery.
As has been the case for the past few iterations of this tournament, CONCACAF tapped Host Broadcast Services (HBS) - the organization that produces major global soccer events like the FIFA men's and women's World Cup and the UEFA European Championship - to manage all technical, editorial, booking, and crewing efforts for the 2021 Gold Cup. HBS is also driving new efforts in digital and ENG coverage.
Sebastian Von Freyberg is one of the producers and directors who have called the 31 matches of the CONCACAF Gold Cup produced by Host Broadcast Services. He will direct the Gold Cup Final on Sunday.
Sunday's final will be the tech-jammed conclusion of a tournament for which CONCACAF and HBS will have produced 31 matches in 10 venues across the U.S.
Highlighting the effort are advances in transmission and video delivery with Game Creek Video's deployment of its GCV Anywhere platform. Also, some of the vendor's newest IP-centric mobile units - GCV Bravo, Columbia, Gridiron, Celtic and Gotham - were deployed, and a customized remote-production center was built in its Hudson, NH, facility. CONCACAF's Additional Content Feed (ACF), which offered more digital and ENG content to rightsholders and club media teams, and EVS replay for the tournament were operated from there.
MORE: Game Creek Video's GCV Anywhere' Platform Makes Live Media Production Happen at a Distance for CONCACAF Gold Cup and More
At the tournament's peak during the Group Stage, GCV Anywhere was supporting multiple productions occurring simultaneously in Orlando, Dallas, and Kansas City. Twenty-four channels of H.265-encoded 1080/60p HDR video were transported to the New Hampshire facility to feed seven remote EVS operators, three EVS operators, three EVS IPDirectors, and 12 intercom positions there.
Each Group Stage match of this year's Gold Cup was captured by 23 or 24 cameras. In the Knockout Rounds, that number was boosted to 26-28.
The one thing that I really appreciate when we're on the road and are working long hours is the great attitude of the [Game Creek Video] people, says Oscar Sanchez, director, broadcast operations/executive producer, CONCACAF. The engineers in the truck, everybody on the Game Creek side has been so good, and their units are in such good shape.
CONCACAF and HBS also tapped VISTA Worldlink's popular at-home production facility in Dania Beach, FL, to serve as its Broadcast Operations Center (BOC) and integrated graphics and commentary for rightsholders in the U.S. (Fox Sports, Univision, TUDN), Canada (OneSoccer), Mexico (Televisa, TV Azteca), and Central America. Vista Worldlink Director, Sales, Marc Beckmeier served as project leader.
Sanchez notes that, throughout the tournament, a 1080p HDR feed has been produced in the truck onsite but not transmitted because of a lack of interest from the various rightsholders. Instead, the signal delivered is 1080i SDR.
Game Creek Video's IP-centric Bravo, Columbia, Gridiron, Celtic, and Gotham were onsite at the 10 venues hosting matches.
Where there has been increased demand by broadcast partners is in cloud distribution. As a result, HBS sought out the services of The Switch and, through its Mimic cloud-services platform, initiated fiber transmission from the match venues to the BOC for distribution to rightsholders. The Switch SVP, Sales, Rick Behar played a key role as project leader.
We've been exploring this coming into this tournament, and we've been extremely happy with it, says Sanchez, noting that CONCACAF Technical and Transmission Director Dario Boronat has overseen the effort. This isn't the future. This is the now.
In terms of production gear, each Group Stage match was covered by 23 or 24 cameras. In the Knockout Rounds, that number was boosted to 26-28. At least three super-slow-motion cameras were committed to each of the 31 matches. Cable-cam systems from Spidercam and Skycam were rigged up at most of the stadiums, and 3G Wireless handled signal delivery for all RF video and audio solutions.
The GCV Anywhere remote-production operation for the Gold Cup was built at Game Creek's facility in Hudson, NH.
One of the biggest challenges of this year's event was crewing. Typically, CONCACAF and HBS bring in front-bench talent from across the globe to produce the event, which is second in stature in this part of the planet only to the FIFA World Cup. That wasn't feasible given the many travel restrictions still in place and in flux as the industry continues to cope with COVID-19 restrictions.
Even so, CONCACAF and HBS were able to recruit a highly respectable stable of directors, producers, and coordinating producers to oversee the live broadcasts: Ken Neal, Glen Wilhem, Dacio Alonso, Javier Estrada, Shaw Brown, Sebastian Von Freyberg, Ute Goser, Jeff Straus, Kristin Hennessey, Riki Van Steeden, and Laszlo Szele.
We have a strong culture of soccer production in the U.S. right now, says Sanchez. The people that work with us [regularly] are fantastic.
On Sunday, Von Freyberg will direct alongside Goser in the producer chair.
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...
Host Broadcast Services Drives Transcontinental Transmission, Production for CONCACAF Gold Cup Game Creek trucks, GCV Anywhere workflow handle 10-venue, 31-match tourney By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
