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WOMEN’S EUROS


WHISPER IS GEARING UP FOR ITS COVERAGE OF THE WOMEN’S EUROS ON THE BBC THAT KICKS OFF AROUND THE UK IN JULY. THE TOURNAMENT HAS GROWN ALONGSIDE WOMEN’S FOOTBALL OVER THE YEARS AND THIS EVENT WILL HAVE THE MOST EXTENSIVE COVERAGE YET


Whisper picked up the BBC contract for the 2022 Women’s Euros at the back end of 2021. The indie, says Md Mark Cole, has a “proud heritage in women’s football” winning a Bafta for its Channel 4 Women’s Euros coverage in 2017 “so we always hoped that we’d be in the mix. But there’s no complacency. And we had to put together a pitch befitting a major tournament like this.” Cole says the main approach of


the pitch “was to just drop the word ‘women’s’. It’s a major European Football Championship.” And not just that, “but a home football event” with England one of the favourites and Northern Ireland qualifying for the first time. “So, in our pitch, the vision was very grand.”


PITCH PERFECT For an event as big as this, pitches need to be detailed. “They almost become like pre-production meetings.” Which means once the contract is won “your ideas are more advanced.” The trick then is creating a “real partnership” with the wider BBC. “That’s the key - that partnership element with the BBC and with those driving it at their end and making sure that you look at


60 televisual.com Summer 2022


which ideas they like and which ideas that need more development. And then trying to work with the various areas of the BBC. It’s such a big beast but a lot of us used to work there, so we know how to navigate around,” says Cole. Initial pitch and planning starts


with Whisper’s business development unit and core football team “they take on the majority of it,” along with the senior team. “it’s a combination of those two teams coming together with the support the senior staff.”


TEAM TALK Cole says that having that in-house core team and 80% of the overall team in-house was “one of the strengths of our pitch given that it’s such a busy summer.” That means “you’re not then scrambling around” for staff in a competitive live events summer schedule. Key freelancers were booked up quickly but “ultimately, it’s our core football team, because we do so much football now with UEFA and with the WSL,” so it was a “question of reallocating them over the summer and making sure people had some holidays so that they were available to work on the event.”


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