Cost of Televised Matches

connaughtlad

After watching various AIL, Pro12 and schools games on RTE/TG4 im curious as to how much it costs to televise live matches/highlights?

thomond2006

abou 3 fiddy

durkadurka

Im gonna plonk in a guesstimate of 10k.

Half dozen cameras , production team in the truck , host and a couple of experts ( who I hear from gossip get a couple of hundred quid each)

Wexfordboy89

thomond2006 wrote: »

abou 3 fiddy

god damn thomond give me my god damn 3 fiddy!!!!!!

Losty Dublin

durkadurka wrote: »

Im gonna plonk in a guesstimate of 10k.

Half dozen cameras , production team in the truck , host and a couple of experts ( who I hear from gossip get a couple of hundred quid each)

Back in the mid 90's, RTE reckoned it cost over £20,000 to cover LOI games live; a AIL rugby game would be looking at a similiar set up.

Clareman

It really does depend on the ground and the broadcast type though. A game being played in Aviva/TP/RDS/Ravenhill will be a lot cheaper to broadcast because the facilities (like commentators area, cabling, camera points, power, etc. etc.) will be in place already. I remember hearing when the Eurovision was held in Millstreet that they got a state of the art broadcasting setup left there as it was cheaper to build it and leave it rather than take it away, then when Collins Eubank was on there they got an even better setup thanks to Sky.

For broadcasters, it'll depend on whether the game is being shown live or just for highlights and if it's going to be in HD (or even 3D) or SD. If a game isn't being shown live, then the broadcaster mightn't send a commentator and might just send the recording back on tape (or disk) rather than using satellite bandwidth. HD takes ~4 times the amount of bandwidth to broadcast as well as more expensive cameras, 3D need double HD, so that will make a difference as well.

I setup a local GAA club for 4 cameras for them to record matches/training, they were simple HD CCTV cameras being fed back to a PC, all in the whole setup cost them ~€3,500 (hehe 3 fiddy), that was €250 per camera (just put on on flood lights poles), €1,500 for a reliable PC with MASSIVE storage and €1,000 for a decent wireless router and a few wifi antennas, they could be able to "broadcast" a game for "free" in theory using their existening technology by just streaming the feed over the internet.

CIARAN_BOYLE

Clareman wrote: »

It really does depend on the ground and the broadcast type though. A game being played in Aviva/TP/RDS/Ravenhill will be a lot cheaper to broadcast because the facilities (like commentators area, cabling, camera points, power, etc. etc.) will be in place already. I remember hearing when the Eurovision was held in Millstreet that they got a state of the art broadcasting setup left there as it was cheaper to build it and leave it rather than take it away, then when Collins Eubank was on there they got an even better setup thanks to Sky.

For broadcasters, it'll depend on whether the game is being shown live or just for highlights and if it's going to be in HD (or even 3D) or SD. If a game isn't being shown live, then the broadcaster mightn't send a commentator and might just send the recording back on tape (or disk) rather than using satellite bandwidth. HD takes ~4 times the amount of bandwidth to broadcast as well as more expensive cameras, 3D need double HD, so that will make a difference as well.

I setup a local GAA club for 4 cameras for them to record matches/training, they were simple HD CCTV cameras being fed back to a PC, all in the whole setup cost them ~€3,500 (hehe 3 fiddy), that was €250 per camera (just put on on flood lights poles), €1,500 for a reliable PC with MASSIVE storage and €1,000 for a decent wireless router and a few wifi antennas, they could be able to "broadcast" a game for "free" in theory using their existening technology by just streaming the feed over the internet.

Even if it is being shown live sometimes day do that (TG4 last weekend for the Connacht for example)

Clareman

I should have added, if a game is being shown live they'll need a fairly complex editing suite with a number of staff members to be able to get all the angles/replays setup correctly, that won't be needed for highlights as it'll probably be done at home base.

Also, most broadcasters will just use tape/disks as backup mediums now, because they pay yearly rates for satellite bandwidth it's just as easy to beam it back to HQ rather than post it back, in the Foreign Satellite forum here you might get details on some of the satellites broadcasters use to get their signals on, you might even find some unencryted, I know there were a couple of games from Croke Park last year that weren't on live anywhere that were beamed back with no audio but you could see the raw feed.