86 THE EVOLUTION OF VIRTUAL STUDIOS
BBC Sport’s John Murphy speaks to Adrian Pennington about the expert insights he gained on AR, LED volumes and camera tracking from setting up the virtual studios for Match of the Day and several major sporting tournaments
When BBC Sport moved to MediaCity, Salford, in 2011, it arrived with the opportunity to refresh the flagship football highlights show Match of the Day (MOTD). Having been produced from a traditional set for its previous 47 years on air, the MOTD production soon broke ground by pioneering the use of augmented reality with camera tracking systems. “We were guinea pigs with the use of live AR in the UK,” recalls John Murphy, BBC Sport Design Director, a post he has held since 2011. “Everything was new. Setting up tracking cameras was painful. It was a great idea from a creative point of view, but it had a lot of people in production tearing their hair out at the time.” Through trial and error, the BBC Sport team cracked AR graphics before they ever saw how game engine technology could be used for virtual live production. “This was at IBC around 2017 and the keying against green screen was amazing. You could key objects like water bottles and fine texture-like hair in software, which we’d not really seen before.” BBC Sport decided to go ahead with building a virtual studio for MOTD, a move which also gave the department greater flexibility and creative freedom. It debuted in 2018. “We didn’t have to be stuck to one physical set or one look,” Murphy says. “It was a game- changer. We learned a lot of harsh lessons initially around how to work with game engines in the broadcast environment, but we’ve progressed to the point where virtual studios have become the norm for us.”
In addition to the MOTD studio, BBC Sport also operates Studio 1 with a 9.5m x 9m footprint, which comprises a green floor and green walls along three sides. From this studio, it has hosted the Winter Olympics 2022, FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 and the UEFA Women’s Euro competitions. Murphy notes: “It’s a great business case because that was a physical space that wasn’t utilised to its full potential until we added the green screen and opened up a lot more capabilities for different productions. We produce daily iPlayer content from there and now we’re using it for digital and social content more and more.”
For coverage of the Paris Olympics and the Men’s Euros from Germany in the summer
of 2024, BBC Sport introduced LED screens to the sets that were built on location and had views of the Eiffel Tower and Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. “For the 2024 UEFA Euros, we installed two mixed-reality presentation studio areas opposite the Brandenburg Gate: one on the roof terrace and one inside. Both used extended reality, AR and LED screens to provide a museum-themed look and feel that complemented the city’s architecture. We also displayed on- screen visuals to showcase match data and statistics for viewers.” In both cases, most of the gallery production and editing was performed remotely back in Salford. “The reality is that Paris and Berlin were the best use cases for blending the real and the virtual from a creative angle, but they probably weren’t the best from a business perspective,” Murphy says. “In terms of a business and sustainability point of view, the Women’s Euro is the gold standard. We were able to give each live presentation a realistic Swiss backdrop while producing it all from the UK.”
John Murphy, BBC Sport
“You can have all the latest technology available, but it’s actually getting the creative part right that is fundamental”
MURPHY’S TOP TIPS There can be few people more experienced in working with virtual studios than Murphy. He offers this advice for others thinking of following suit: “One of the biggest things that people miss is the editorial and design. You can have all the latest technology available, but it’s actually getting the creative part right that is fundamental.” The BBC’s internal sports graphics team is small, and it tends to work with external suppliers like AE Live (for Euro 2024), Moov TV
John Murphy, BBC Sport
(for the Paris Olympics) and Sunset+Vine (for the Women’s Euro 2025). Murphy stresses the importance of putting design at the very start of the process. “You should have ideas about what you want to achieve visually rather than just using the latest virtual tech for the sake of it.” Murphy’s team is in early planning for next
year’s bumper summer of live sports and is using IBC2025 to scout the latest technologies as part of that preparation. “We’ve still got decisions to make from a virtual production and presentation point of view, so IBC2025 is important for us on that front. We’re discussing internally and with FIFA about how best to approach the World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico. Just ahead of that, Wimbledon is another massive live event for us.”
John Murphy is taking part in the IBC2025 Conference session ‘Case Study: Integrating virtual production to transform sports coverage’, which takes place tomorrow from 12:15-12:35 in Conference Room 1.
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