Mediapro begins audiovisual production of the Canadian Premier League

The Canadian professional soccer league begins its broadcasts on OneSoccer, a 24/7 channel and OTT platform created by Mediapro. It will produce more than 130 games this season at venues up to more than 5,700 kilometers apart.

Mediapro has contributed to the successful launch of the Canadian Premier League (CPL), the new Canadian professional soccer league, which began last weekend with the first two games.

The countdown for this great audiovisual production began last February. Mediapro acquired the audiovisual rights managed by the Canadian Soccer Business (CSB) for the next ten years, including all domestic and international rights to the Canadian Premier League (CPL), the new professional soccer league.

The agreement also includes domestic and international rights to the Canadian Championship, which will determine access to the Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League, as well as audiovisual rights to all Canadian men's and women's national team home games and rights to League1 Ontario matches.

The audiovisual group will produce 130 live Canadian soccer games this season. For this purpose, it will have a team of 100 professionals on each of the days (a total of 25 people per venue), among whom are producers and camera and satellite operators. Among numerous other technical means, Mediapro has five mobile units, one of them equipped with 4K technology.

The geographical characteristics of the country entail logistics capable of covering great distances since, for example, the headquarters of HFX Wanderers Football Club (East coast) and Pacific Football Club (West coast) are separated by more than 5,700 kilometers.

Great challenge of technical and human resources

The audiovisual production of a sporting event of this size has meant a great audiovisual engineering challenge, broadcasting services, training of directors and producers, technical capacity to unite the communications of Canadian stadiums, editing and archiving systems, and implementation of continuity services, among many other areas.

Mediapro's Toronto-based office has recently been strengthened with the company's acquisition Tri-Lite TV, a leading audiovisual services company in Canada with more than 20 years of experience and headquartered in Ontario. It also has the support of the various companies in the group that have made the launch of OneSoccer possible.

OneSoccer, a 24/7 channel

Mediapro has launched a channel with live coverage and VoD content destined to become the new home of Canadian football. The launch took place on the eve of the highly anticipated first match of the Canadian Premier League, between Forge FC and York9 FC at Hamilton's Tim Hortons Field (Ontario).

The OneSoccer streaming service launched on April 26 with a wide variety of subscription options. The new 24/7 channel with live content and VoD is free through onesoccer.ca during the first month, providing live coverage, until the end of May, of 25 Premier League and Canadian Championship matches, as well as the Canadian women's team's friendly match against Mexico. During this period, 20 of the 25 matches will be offered exclusively on OneSoccer.

In addition to the 98 Canadian Premier League matches (including the final), OneSoccer will also offer all Canadian men's and women's national team home matches and all 24 matches of the Canadian Championship, featuring all of Canada's professional teams, with a selection of matches broadcast in simulcast on a national operator. Around 100 matches will be broadcast exclusively in 2019. And from 2020, OneSoccer will also offer a selection of men's and women's League1 Ontario matches.