Live satellite transmission of Qatari football match

The world’s oldest international football tournament – The Copa América – kicks off tonight in São Paulo, in its 46th edition, with Bolivia playing against Brazil in the opening match. This year, besides the South American teams, Japan and Qatar are playing as guest teams, and the Qatari squad has been in Brazil for a few weeks already, for warm-up matches.

Last Sunday, they played in a stunning resort in Mangaratiba, surrounded by mountains and Atlantic Forest, on the coast about 100km outside Rio de Janeiro. Their opponent were local Rio team Madureira. Qatari sports channel Alkass needed on-the-ground support to provide a live satellite broadcast feed of the match, and Story Productions was delighted to help.

We provided eight camera operators on the field with a satellite truck uplink transmission. Inside, a team of four vision mixers were editing the multiple camera feeds while Alkass broadcast the match live on their channel. Story Productions has plenty of experience with live sporting events, most recently providing varied production services to foreign crews throughout the 2016 Rio Olympic Games and the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Despite Brazil’s star player Neymar being out of the Copa América due to injury, the the Brazilian members of the Story Productions team are still feeling optimistic about the squad’s chances. After all, on all four previous occasions that Brazil hosted the tournament (1919, 1922, 1949 e 1989), it was crowned champion.

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Oh, and as for the Qatar x Madureira match, the Rio team put up a good fight but were pipped by the Qataris in the second half.