The basketball club in Den Bosch Heroes has been a valued partner to work with for many years already. When the covid measures allowed the club to play their matches again, streaming video became even more a focal point than it already was for the club. This was the point where they reached out and asked us to step in and create a live stream that was at gold level. Only one issue… the budget was not gold level. It was bronze as no income could be generated from selling tickets.
The Club Owner Bob van Oosterhout was clear in his statement not to charge in a Pay-per-View model for fans to watch the matches online. We approached Unlimited Vision and Sound to see if we can build a solution to stream the matches and provide the ultimate basketball experience.
The club had a few wishes, one was to have two commentary positions and to have the best quality picture and graphics that we could provide. The commentary position was realised quite quickly. We added a CTP systems Dante Commentary box. But then the graphics.
We had already built a solution to take the game statistics from the scouting system in use by the Dutch Basketball League (DBL) called FIBA Stats. This system is used to provide all sorts of statistics towards Genius and other betting offices. It contains an API that we used to retrieve relevant data to fill graphics. In conjunction with a Scoreboard reading system we built an almost fully automated solution to provide stats and scores during the matches. Making it easy to operate.
The input from Unlimited Vision and Sound was tremendous, they supplied a Flight pack with 2 Panasonic EFP cameras and 1 PTZ. YourSide added two 3CCD cams to be placed behind the Basketboards making it one of the most complete live streams in the DBL at that time.
The same setup then also was used during the two basketball bubbles for the FIBA Europe Cup to provide game statistics towards the OB truck for the games broadcasted to Ziggo Sports and to provide graphics that were shown during the streamed versions of the games.
The role YourSide played here was the advisor and developer of the live stream in general and the graphic solution, used in both the Heroes own livestream as during the FIBA Europe Cup. A system that we provide for other clubs and teams as well. Also we provided the streaming solution based on Makito KB Mini to stream the matches and during the FIBA cup we provided Makito X encoders to transmit the signals to the FIBA MCR so they could transcode towards the streaming platforms and broadcasters around the globe.
Looking back, this case gave us great energy and a rewarding feeling! Responses on the graphics and content itself were mainly positive even in such a way as we noticed that other teams copied the way we did things! A development we only encouraged as this takes the basketball sport further. We managed to operate the flight pack with just 4 people. 2 manning the consoles and 2 cameramen. Making this a very cost-efficient solution to produce your sports events! Looking to broadcast your sports event on the internet or TV? Get in touch and let’s discuss the options and create energy!
