Bringing the Arabian Gulf League show to fans everywhere

Football broadcasting has progressed by leaps and bounds since the sport went professional in the UAE in 2008

Live HD crew members run a live broadcast of an Arabian Gulf League match at the Al Nahyan Stadium in Abu Dhabi on October 29. Sarah Dea / The National

At least five hours before the beginning of any broadcast of any Arabian Gulf League game, a huge, multinational team are already at the ground, beavering away to make sure everything is in place when it is time to tune in.

Cameras have to be in place. Two outdoor broadcast (OB) vans have to be set up. Cables and wires need to be arranged delicately, so that we do not see them, which is no easy task given there are enough wires to set up a nifty zip-line from Abu Dhabi to Antarctica.

“Everybody from everywhere is here,” one of the network crew said, helpfully.

Here is Al Nahyan Stadium in the capital, venue for Al Jazira’s game with Dubai in the sixth round of the league, which was played last month.

Everybody is the team from Live HD, the broadcast production company owned by Abu Dhabi Media that produces all football content for Abu Dhabi Sports TV, including game broadcasts. Live HD has been handling football broadcasts since the league went professional in 2008, the year Live HD was formed.

The on-site crew is indeed from everywhere: Spain, Portugal, German, the Gulf, the Indian subcontinent. It is a little UAE inside the UAE.

The company is using 13 on-pitch cameras for this game but can use up to 18 and even 22 for the really big ones, the Cup finals, local derbies and league deciders.

On match days, anywhere from 35-60 staff are working at the stadium. The nerve centre for the broadcast are the two OB vans, wheeled behemoths parked side by side at the entrance of the stadium. In size, they rank somewhere between a large lorry and the trailer of a Hollywood star.

In spirit, they are unique. One van orchestrates the studio analysis of the game, operating pre-match, at half-time and post-match. The other is for the broadcast of the game, a trickier operation altogether.

Inside each, the atmosphere is not as tense as might be expected. In fact, imagine one of those old, traditional tea or coffeehouses of the Arab world, where gnarled old men meet to smoke and discuss politics and football.

Except, of course, there are no smokes inside. There is a production panel on one side, a desk of sorts with a vision mixer, which allows the director to switch between different video sources, and a bank of multiple monitors.

The director of the broadcast and an assistant sit here. Behind that is a row of manned computers.

There is plenty of animated chatter, booming voices and lots of agitated gesturing. It is an edgy industriousness, able to tip as readily into good cheer as something more tense.

In the live-broadcast van, during the game, the director is the orchestrator. In terms of multi-tasking, he is spread as thin as an air-traffic controller. He needs eyes for every camera angle and he responsible for switching cameras, so that we can close in on a foul, a chance, or back to the predominant view, looking down on the pitch horizontally.

The camera trained on the coaches is working overtime this day: it is Walter Zenga’s first game as Jazira coach. Fortunately, Zenga is an animated man, a director’s dream.

The job screams for experience and Bassem Ibrahim, a director for Abu Dhabi Sports TV, has it. He chortles when asked how long he has been doing this, as if to say, longer than can be imagined.

“Here, or in TV?” he asked. “Now in TV, 14 years. I did lots of non-sports programming as well, in-studio work.”

Last season, he worked on the English Premier League broadcasts, mostly studio-based work, but he is back on live shows now, an inestimably more pressurised environment.

He looks older than he is, a famous broadcast side effect.

“It is very busy inside the vans,” he said. “There is lots of pressure, of course, but it’s no problem. I’m used to it now.

“I enjoy doing it. Enjoy it very much. Why? When some small problem comes up, I can make it better, I can resolve it. This is the job of the director. Any problem, he is the one who can fix it.

“Some directors might not be focused – things have to be done very quickly. You have to have your eyes and ears everywhere.”

Year Zero for football broadcasting in the UAE was 2008, the same year football turned professional in the country. That season, the league and the broadcasters agreed that coverage would be revamped entirely.

No specific models were followed, but an influx of personnel who had worked in top leagues in Europe, such as Spain’s Primera Liga and Portugal’s Primeira Liga, means the entire broadcast package telecast in 2013 is exceptionally slick.

“The coverage has begun to look like this only five years ago, when the professional football began,” said Omran Mohammad, head of programming at ADTV Sports.

“When we became professional, certain standards were set. There was a discussion for a need for HD cameras, for example, or so many number of cameras. The league wanted huge coverage. So for that we had to set a standard and people came in from European leagues who had production experience.”

Though the live games themselves are the main feature – usually seven league games a week – around them revolve a dizzying solar system of support programming.

“Other than the games themselves and the stuff we do from the studios at the ground and at our offices, we have the Game Over show right after the games,” Omran said.

“One day after the round, we have Huna Abu Dhabi, which takes everything that has happened over the weekend and discusses that. We have two news shows, one local, one international. We have one show called Maestro two times a week.

“The first is a preview of the matches and the other is after. It is analysis and based mostly around graphics and stats. Then we also have an interactive FanZone show, to give fans a voice, to let them say what is on their mind, through social media or SMS.”

Many of the people working on this expansive coverage are Emiratis, culled from searches in colleges and universities.

Attendance at most league games, it is no secret, is generally low, unless one of the bigger clubs, such as Al Ain, Al Ahli or Al Wasl, are involved. There are many reasons for this, including the comprehensive coverage on TV. Why go to the stadium when you can get everything and more on your television?

That has pushed a crucial change this year, one that could not only help attendances but also open up another avenue for broadcast revenue.

This season, two games every week have been broadcast solely on encrypted channels, for which there is a subscription fee, believed to be a first for the region.

“By encrypting two of the seven matches per round on pay TV, we intend to drive greater stadium attendances,” Colin Smith, chief executive of the body that runs the AGL, said earlier this season. “Over the longer term, the subscription element should also facilitate increased investment in the league.”