Partners at the All England Club include IMG, Fox Sports Australia, Channel 7, WOWOW and Live @ Wimbledon
Content owners and broadcasters including IMG, Fox Sports Australia, Channel 7, WOWOW and Live @ Wimbledon are relying on Gearhouse Broadcast’s OB solutions and on-site technical support at the 2014 Wimbledon Championships tennis Grand Slam. This is Gearhouse’s third major of the year, having previously been involved at both the Australian and French Open championships, and is the third time that it has provided broadcast services to both IMG and Channel 7 at the All England Club.
For IMG, a global leader in sports and media, Gearhouse Broadcast has serviced the world feed for all rights holders. This takes individual feeds from Wimbledon’s various grass courts to create an overall signal which provides a summary of all the day’s action. In addition, there is a web feed which is delivered to Live @ Wimbledon, the new video and audio channel broadcasting online during the tournament.
Gearhouse supplied IMG with broadcast equipment including EVS XT3 servers, Sony MVS-7000X and MVS-6530 vision mixers, Harris glue, a Snell Cygnus router, an RTS Telex talkback system as well as cabling and fibre connectivity.
Broadcasters including Fox Sports Australia, Channel 7 and WOWOW also received their own bespoke feeds and equipment from Gearhouse Broadcast for their coverage of the tournament, with the Japanese pay-TV broadcaster also using Gearhouse studio facilities for its dedicated coverage of the Wimbledon fortnight.
“Wimbledon is one of the great occasions in the sporting calendar, with so much going on throughout the two week duration so it’s crucial that the coverage we deliver reflects the importance of the tournament,” said Stephen Farr, head of technical services at IMG. “We work with Gearhouse because they have years of experience in covering top tennis tournaments and provide proven and reliable solutions to help deliver our coverage.”
“With so much out there for viewers to watch these days, we have to ensure that we help our customers deliver high quality content to their global audiences,” said Kevin Moorhouse, COO of Gearhouse Broadcast. “Live events like Wimbledon generate a lot of viewer interest and can fill a lot of available air time, so the solutions we deliver are designed to ensure our customers can maximise the return they get on their investments.”
