MEDIAPRO Assists Canadian Premier League Kickoff With Broadcast Services

The MEDIAPRO Group has contributed to the successful launch of the Canadian Premier League, the new Canadian professional soccer league, with two matches held this past weekend, overcoming significant technical challenges along the way.

The countdown to this immense broadcasting operation began in February of this year, when MEDIAPRO acquired all the media rights within the Canadian Soccer Business (CSB) portfolio for the next 10 years, including the domestic and international media rights to the Canadian Premier League (CPL), the new professional soccer league. The agreement also includes the domestic and international media rights to the Canadian Championship, which determines entry to the Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League, as well as the media rights to the home games of Canada Soccer Women’s and Men’s National Teams, and to Ontario’s League1 for men and women.

MEDIAPRO will produce live coverage of over 130 Canadian soccer matches this season. More than 100 staff will be involved in the production of every match, with 25 professionals at every location, including producers, camera operators, and satellite technicians. MEDIAPRO’s technical capabilities include five outside broadcast trucks, one of which is equipped with 4K technology. Operating in a country the size of Canada brings with it enormous logistical challenges: for example, the home ground of HFX Wanderers FC on the east coast is more than 5,700 km away from Pacific FC’s stadium on the west coast.

Significant Challenges for Technical and Human Resources
MEDIAPRO has risen to the challenges of providing broadcasting services for a sports event of these dimensions, providing solutions in the areas of broadcast engineering, transmission services, director and producer training, the integration and optimization of stadium communications across Canadian stadiums, editing and archiving systems, and the launch of continuing services, among other activities.

MEDIAPRO’s Toronto office was recently expanded by the acquisition of Tri-Lite TV, a leading independent Canadian media services company based in Ontario with more than 20 years of experience in the business. MEDIAPRO Canada is also supported by a wide array of companies under the MEDIAPRO Group banner that have contributed to the launch of OneSoccer.

OneSoccer, a 24/7 Channel
MEDIAPRO has created a dedicated Canadian soccer channel showing live and video on-demand (VoD) coverage that will become the new home of Canadian soccer. The channel was launched on the eve of the Canadian Premier League’s much-anticipated opening match between Forge FC and York9FC at Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton, Ontario.

The OneSoccer streaming service came into being on April 26 with a wide range of subscription options. The new 24/7 channel, with both live and VoD content, is free to users through onesoccer.ca for the first month, through to the end of May, offering viewers 25 CPL and Canadian Championship matches as well as the friendly match on May 18 between the Canada Soccer Women’s National Team and the women’s national team of Mexico. During this period, 20 of the 25 matches will be exclusive to OneSoccer.

In addition to the 98 matches in the CPL regular season (plus the final), OneSoccer will also offer all the home matches of the Canada Soccer Women’s and Men’s National Teams, and the 24 matches in the expanded Canadian Championship, which involves all professional soccer clubs in Canada, with a package of matches simulcast on a national broadcaster. Some 100 matches will be aired exclusively on the service in 2019. From 2020, OneSoccer will also offer a range of matches involving men’s and women’s teams participating in Ontario’s League1.