As the world, the stadiums and the audiences watched the series of wonderful games that made up the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™, few thought much about how those signals were broadcast to deliver the blow-by-blow moments, unless you worked for Teljoy Audio Visual, in which case you knew exactly how much effort it had required.
“We won the initial tender in 2009 for the FIFA Confederations Cup™ to supply overlay cabling for four stadiums, providing community antenna TV (CATV) or cable TV,” explains Stefan Mayer, National Operations Manager for Teljoy Audio Visual.
“This learning experience made it possible for us to successfully tender for the 2010 FIFA World Cup to supply the stadium overlay cabling and cable TV for all 10 sites around the country.”
“Each stadium was different but essentially our task was to ensure that all TV’s in the VIP booths, the Media tribune, the Stadium Media Centre, and the outlying tent sites (for media, accreditation, hospitality, security, volunteers and the like) received the internal broadcast signals for each and every one of the 64 games played during June and July. FIFA appointed Host Broadcast Services (HBS), employ the cameramen who film the games. These were edited and updated 24/7 on the fly. These signals are sent to each stadium HBS studio, where they are mixed, edited, and broadcast to the hundreds of satellite stations around the world including the SABC and SuperSport. Teljoy Audio Visual sub-contracted a German company, Incast, to provide two channels; FIFA TV and Stadium TV that streamed from Soccer City to all outlying stadiums via IP networks.
We had to link these TV channels to all the TV’s in the stadia via our temporary RF Head End and coaxial cabling infrastructures. As some of the outlying areas were far away, we also provided the fibre optic equipment to run these channels over the fibre optic cables supplied by Telkom SA and then convert back to RF cabling within each tent site”. “To get an idea of the size of the project, in Soccer City there were 600 screens alone for the media tribune that required power and signal. In total there were 8500 TV screens installed and tuned, with approx. 90 km of RF co-axial cabling and tens of thousands connectors, splitters and taps used for the temporary overlay. “We had to design, roll out and maintain all of the CATV installations; work began in April. All the cabling had to be removed within eight days of the final games in each stadium, except for the stadium hospitality suites, which retained the cabling systems as a legacy.”
The Teljoy Audio Visual team of up to 90 people worked with 16 engineers from Germany, under the supervision of Stephan Sandner, technical FIFA consultant to the local Organising Committee. In terms of our contract, we were obligated to repair any faults within six minutes and were on standby to do so.
“From Soccer City, we kept in touch with all the teams around the country through TETRA radios (cell phone like “walkie-talkies”) utilising Telkom SA Diginet links to each city. There were five project managers reporting to me and six staff members at each site, rising to as many as ten on the day of a match,” continues Stefan. “There were just over 3000 hours of overtime but in the end the project was delivered on time, to the highest quality and without a hitch at any one of the 64 games.”
“It was a very satisfying and worthwhile project of over R20 million and we are all proud of the world class CATV service we provided for the 2010 FIFA World Cup™,” adds Dr Stuart Robertson, CEO of Teljoy Audio Visual. “There was a huge spirit of willingness to get the job done despite the challenges and praise must also go to our eight subcontracting companies, who are regular partners of ours, but who really pulled out all the stops for this event.”
The SMME subcontractors were:
- Cape Town – Incotec and HTZ Cable & Satellite
- Rustenburg & Durban - Preggies Aerials
- Port Elizabeth and Bloemfontein – Unicomm
- Polokwane – Multi-Electronics
- Nelspruit – Sonic Vision
- Pretoria – Cosmic Installations
- Johannesburg – Turnkey Installations
“Of course, during this time our traditional hospitality industry customers suddenly demanded upgrading and extra SMATV installations so that their staff and guests could also watch the World Cup games, which provided us with an unexpected boost in sales. “We also added to each of the local economies, our staff rented houses and B&B accommodation, we used hire cars and generally utilised local suppliers wherever possible.
“It was a wonderful vibe and we all look back on this event with huge pride. We held several celebration events in August, where everyone involved received a certificate of participation signed by me and the teams received trophies for each stadium. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and we will always remember the thrill that we all got from the successful involvement in this momentous event,” concludes Dr Robertson.