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Thursday, May 13 night’s DFB-Pokal final between RB Leipzig and Borussia Dortmund can be watched live by football fans all around the globe with coverage available in each of the nearly 200 countries worldwide. In addition to coverage from domestic partners ARD and SKY and the DFB’s international TV partners, the association will be streaming the game on its YouTube channel “German Football”, geotargeting to countries without an exclusive TV partnership deal.
This year’s TV production will also feature a number of modern innovations. This will be the first ever DFB-Pokal final to be produced in Ultra HD (UHD-HDR). UHD has a resolution four times higher than the standard HD signal. The UHD signal will be generated by the brilliant HDR (High Dynamic Range), which uses more vivid images with a higher contrast to display as authentic a picture as possible on the TV screen. Fans will be able to watch the game in this higher resolution exclusively on SKY’s UHD channel.
The international feed will be produced using around 30 cameras, including two special aerial recording systems:
- The teams’ coach journey from the hotel to the Olympiastadion will be captured from a helicopter using a stabilised broadcast camera with a powerful zoom function.
- The TVN-LiveCopter will also be using a drone camera over the pitch to provide the viewer with more angles and impressive aerial shots.
As an additional feature, the “ARRI ALEXA Mini” will also be making its TV debut in German football, providing pitch-side images with a cinematic look and adding to the excitement of the 2021 DFB-Pokal final.
The use of Augmented Reality will also be expanded compared to last year. Not only will the opening ceremony be produced with a virtual 3D element, but pre-match, half-time and post-match footage will also be produced with integrated virtual elements for the international feed.
In order to provide both domestic and international TV partners with even more added value for the final, the DFB will be making a substantial amount of real-time video content available to its media partners via the innovative filesharing platform “scoopa.com”. This supply of video content goes beyond the live coverage and offers an innovative approach for the 360-degree usage of that content on second and third screens, such as online and social-media platforms.
Holger Blask, managing director for marketing and sales at DFB GmbH, said: “The DFB-Pokal final is one of the biggest games in German club football. We want to set new standards for our coverage of this event and keep developing and making progress in all areas. It is also for this reason that we are pleased to be taking the production to a new level with a multitude of innovative features, so that we can show our domestic and international partners the kind of quality they can expect in future from one of the biggest domestic cup competitions in the world.”
Alongside all the innovations that will be visible to the TV audience, the DFB-Pokal final will also be used to test new technology for the implementation of virtual advertising boards, with DFB’s advertising-board service provider SPORTFIVE teaming up with SUPPONOR. Machine learning will be used for the first time in a DFB competition, allowing the implementation of virtual advertising boards via artificial intelligence.
