Unlocking character: Sportcast on executing the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 new season production By Heather McLean
Monday, October 20, 2025 - 13:36
Print This Story
Refcam is now a regular feature of the DFL's new tent pole matches, with the production carried out by Sportcast. Pictured, refcam being used during the Bundesliga match between FC Bayern M nchen and Borussia Dortmund at Allianz Arena on 12 April 2025 in Munich, Germany [Photo by Alexander Scheuber/Bundesliga/Bundesliga Collection via Getty Images]
The Deutsche Fu ball Liga (DFL) and its host broadcast production company, Sportcast, have worked together for many years on the Bundesliga and the country's second division men's game, Bundesliga 2. This season marks the beginning of a new four-year rights cycle in which the DFL has made significant changes to its rights packages, and which Sportcast is executing on its behalf.
Unlocking character
At Sportcast, the new rights cycle has meant a lot of changes across everything it does, from the Bundesliga to Bundesliga 2. Says Seamus Neary, Sportcast's director of matchday operations: This season for us means a new rights cycle covering the next four years in both leagues. For us it means we have an even more diversified portfolio that we are offering to all the media partners. If you speak about Sportcast, then of course we work along the whole production chain. This means we start with the world feed, it means we did adjustments to the contribution, as well as the central production facility including the media hub and end with the distribution.
That production chain includes, of course, cameras, and the new rights cycle has meant significant changes to the camera concepts offered by the DFL to its rights holders, and therefore a lot for Sportcast to facilitate. Sportcast now has, an even greater differentiation in the camera concepts according to the right packages of the main domestic media partners, notes Neary.
To aid this, it has created a further three camera concepts to bring the total offerings up to eight camera concepts from five in the previous season, which means it can cover every rights package for both Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2.
Adds Neary: In the end, I guess it's about trying to get the unique character of the games and align that to the rights packages. So for example, this means in the Bundesliga 2, usually we cover matches with 11 to 16 cameras. And then in the Bundesliga it goes up to 28 cameras, he says, referring to the league's flagship concept and top match of the week.
The DFL has leaned into the idea of providing more access to camera angles and the teams in Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 through the creation of tent pole' matches for this rights cycle. These are key games in the season where additional access is viewed as being useful to rights holders. Also, as part of their rights this season, the DFL has given key broadcasters a flexible innovation budget, whereby they can use an allocated budget which is part of their package to request additional cameras for specific matches.
Neary adds on the cameras for the top matches: Speaking about new innovations, of course we have more cine-style cameras, we have even more super slow motion cameras and high motions. We have two explicit coach cams, so that helps us then to also get the emotions directly from the coaching zone and even offers us the possibility to get them in a split screen live or via slow motion.
As well as the camera concepts changes, the contribution workflow has had an overhaul, Neary says. In the past [we created] a fibre network for the media services connecting all 18 Bundesliga venues. We've now forwarded that also to the media product of the Bundesliga 2, so this means we have a holistic fibre network now which of course helps us for future concepts and topics we want to address.
TVN has worked alongside the Deutsche Fu ball Liga (DFL) and its host broadcast production company, Sportcast, for many years on Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2. This year is is taking some match productions for Bundesliga 2 remote for the first time
Remote production
Part of that is the use of remote production for the first time in Bundesliga 2, with Sportcast working with its outside broadcast partner TVN. TVN has launched the first high grade remote broadcast OB truck in Germany. Although remote production does happen in Germany, it is not generally used for big league, high tier sports. TVN has created a remote truck workflow where the truck goes to site, signals from the location are sent to TVN's technical centre in Hanover, and the remote gallery is situated in Cologne, which is also Sportcast's base of operations.
Vidi is working with Sportcast as a contribution partner to guarantee the required connections and is, responsible for all the red and blue lines we have to each venue, and the respective facilities, so this means [in Cologne] we also have a remote gallery and all signals to fulfil a production .
On remote production, Neary says: This is something we are trying to get greater experience with. If you have a look at the quality and delivery, which is what we stand for, it's always helpful to get into new concepts, have a look at it, and find out what it means, [including for the] allocating of resources. We will produce two [Bundesliga 2] matches per matchday from now on via remote. This leads to a reduced setup, so instead of the usual OB van plus the supporting truck, now we only have a supporting truck, so we save an OB van.
The push to try out remote production comes from the DFL and Sportcast, says Neary. The basic idea behind is just to have a greater alignment with customer preferences and basically to get more flexibility. First the challenge was when we talk about a tier one production, it's different ca
North America Stories
23/10/2025
Unlocking character: Sportcast on executing the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 new ...
23/10/2025
Clear coordination: Juggling the new Bundesliga rights cycle requirements and pu...
23/10/2025
Analysis: Is piracy just the cost of doing business? By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, October 21, 2025 - 09:58
Print This Story
It's high ...
23/10/2025
ESPN's Adam Whitlock on Driving Real-World Innovation Across the Video-Trans...
23/10/2025
SVG TranSPORT 2025 Unites 300+ Industry Leaders in New York for Deep Dive Into L...
23/10/2025
NBA Tip-Off: League Starts Season With Two New Broadcast Partners, In-House NBA ...
23/10/2025
NFL Deepens Business Partnership with EA Sports; More Madden Casts to Come?EA Sports will remain the exclusive producer and distributor of Madden NFL video game...
23/10/2025
NFL Moves Pro Bowl Games Indoors and to Super Bowl Week; Leans Into a Made-for-T...
23/10/2025
By Alan Dominguez
Recently I have been thinking about the intersection of two e...
23/10/2025
(L-R) Amber Fares and Noam Shuster Eliassi attend the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Coexistence, My Ass! at the Egyptian Theatre on January 26, 2025...
23/10/2025
The new solution is industry's first multi-channel receiver available for L3Harris's resilient tactical high-frequency data waveforms....
23/10/2025
NEW YORK During a high-profile session at NAB Show New York, new survey data was shared that revealed significant public concern over artificial intelligence (A...
23/10/2025
BELLEVUE, Wash. and NEW YORK Fox Weather has tapped T-Mobile as its preferred communications provider and said all of its reporters will be equipped with SuperM...
23/10/2025
RASTATT, Germany Broadcast and media workflow technology vendor Lawo has tapped Mike Wright as VP of sales, North America....
23/10/2025
MONTREAL European cultural broadcaster ARTE has selected Grass Valley LDX 135 cameras and Creative Grading solution as part of its move from SDI/1080i to a nati...
23/10/2025
CINCINNATI The E.W. Scripps Company has named Daniel Parsons as its new chief information security officer, effective Oct. 20....
23/10/2025
ALAMEDA, Calif. Northern Michigan broadcaster WWTV recently completed a major IP-based upgrade that connects its new Traverse City studio with its control room ...
23/10/2025
A deadline is looming for a new carriage deal between Verizon's Fios TV and Nexstar, with both Verizon and the pay TV-backed American Television Alliance bl...
23/10/2025
NEW YORK During a high-profile session at NAB Show New York, new survey data was shared that revealed significant public concern over artificial intelligence (A...
23/10/2025
BELLEVUE, Wash. and NEW YORK Fox Weather has tapped T-Mobile has as its preferred communications provider and announced that all Fox Weather reporters are being...
23/10/2025
PBS will use generative AI from Amazon Web Services to provide enhanced search results to viewers on the PBS App and PBS LearningMedia platforms, the network an...
23/10/2025
Back to All News
The Resurrected' Marks First Chinese-Language Series to L...
23/10/2025
The nights grow longer and the shadows get bolder with Vampire The Masquerade: B...
22/10/2025
MONTR AL - October 2, 2025 - The Institute of Technical Education (ITE) last mon...
22/10/2025
Prime Video Inks Deal To Present NFL Black Friday Game Worldwide By SVG Staff
Wednesday, October 22, 2025 - 10:06 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story ...
22/10/2025
NBA Tip-Off: ESPN Goes 1080p HDR End-to-End, Flipping HDR Switch on REMI and REM...
22/10/2025
FloSports Empowers Division II, III Athletic Departments With Turnkey Production...
22/10/2025
Wall Street Video Summit Debuts, Bringing Together 200 Financial Enterprise Vide...
22/10/2025
Dueling Pianos: International Chopin Piano Competition Is as Competitive as a Ba...
22/10/2025
The Orion spacecraft for NASA's Artemis II mission is stacked on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket in High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kenn...
22/10/2025
L3Harris' Hybrid SATCOM is resilient by design, offering path diversity that eliminates vulnerabilities by routing data across the best available networks i...
22/10/2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. Organizers of NAB Show New York said they are expecting more than 12,000 registered attendees from about 100 countries along with 260 exhibitor...
22/10/2025
WASHINGTON, D.C The organizers of The 2025 NAB Show New York have announced that they are expecting more than 12,000 registered attendees from about 100 countr...
22/10/2025
Masque Sound, a leading theatrical sound reinforcement, installation and design company, supplied an extensive gear package of professional-grade equipment for ...
22/10/2025
Lightware, a global leader in signal management and AV connectivity solutions, is seeing strong market momentum for the UCX-3x3-TPX-RX20, a compact transmitter-...
22/10/2025
MELVILLE, N.Y. Chyron has released PAINT 10.2, the latest update for its telestration platform, adding support for SMPTE ST 2110 IP workflows, expanding brandin...
22/10/2025
WASHINGTON Run3TV today said NBCUniversal is joining as an investor in the ATSC 3.0 Framework Authority, which develops the Run3TV NextGen TV application platfo...
22/10/2025
ATLANTA swXtch.io will feature two new networking solutions extending the company's reach across more cloud and on-prem workflows at NAB Show New York, set ...
22/10/2025
The Warner Bros. Discoverys HBO Max streaming services has increased prices for all its streaming tiers effectively immediately for new customers. Existing cust...
22/10/2025
LOS ANGELES OpenDrives has signed a new distribution partnership deal with Versatile Distribution Services (VDS) to strengthen its channel and streamline how it...
22/10/2025
WASHINGTON, D.C The organizers of The 2025 NAB Show New York have announced that they are expecting more than 12,000 registered attendees from about 100 countr...
22/10/2025
Samora Pinderhughes Brings Immersive Sound to Berklee's Signature Series The artist and composer, who's worked with Herbie Hancock, Robert Glasper, Co...
22/10/2025
BMI Day at Berklee Celebrates Composer Fil Eisler and Awards Scholarship to Stud...
22/10/2025
October 22nd, 2025 TRIBECA ANNOUNCES STAR-STUDDED LINEUP OF MEMBERSHIP EVENTS F...
22/10/2025
European Broadcaster Upgrades To Grass Valley's NativeIP LDX 135 Cameras And...
21/10/2025
NAB New York 2025: Although AES Show Is on Its Own, Audio Will Be a Major Part o...
21/10/2025
NAB New York 2025: Business of Broadcast and Media,' Future of Content'...
21/10/2025
SVG All-Stars: Ethan Folz, Senior Director, Digital Operations and Quality of Ex...
21/10/2025
NBA on NBC/Peacock: Livestream Offers Graphic Overlays, Predictive Gaming, Ancil...
Unlocking character: Sportcast on executing the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 new season production By Heather McLean 
