Donata hops
DFL boss announces the most digital football league in the world – but there are no drones in the penalty area
“Hello, where are you shooting now?” – Contrary to some reports, no drones should whiz through the penalty area – but the DFL still wants to become more digital.
© ilbusca / DJI / Montage: stern / Getty Images
The new DFL managing director Donata Hopfen wants to take off digitally. The plans range from interactive cameras to transmissions into the Metaverse – but one misunderstanding had to be cleared up afterwards.
For the new DFL boss Donata Hopfen, the Bundesliga is not modern enough – on the contrary. The former media manager plans to turn German football upside down digitally. She revealed some of her plans at the “Sports-Innovation 2022” sports and technology fair.
Media behavior will be “drastically different” compared to today, said Hopfen in her opening speech. In the future, “every fan can experience a visit to the stadium to their liking.” That means: “Anyone who simply wants to continue watching the game for 90 minutes with beer and bratwurst should be able to do the same in the future. But it’s also our job to pick up those who want digital services.”
And these digital services in particular have it all: Thanks to fast 5G Internet, Hopfen wants to make the broadcast of Bundesliga games livelier, for example by integrating virtual reality for fans. As far as television broadcasting is concerned, new cameras in the stadium should provide more perspectives, for example with a special focus or dramatic shots.
drones on the field
Donata Hopfen also spoke about the “metaverse” trend: “In the future, young fans in particular will increasingly want to experience sporting events in a virtual environment. Easy access and adapted content formats will be decisive for acceptance and success be.” She left it open which products and measures can be derived from this knowledge.
The plans for the preparation and follow-up of the game recordings appear a little more earthly – and this is already common practice in other sports broadcasts. A so-called “interactive feed” should enable fans to put together their own conference broadcast and repeat highlights independently. Information and graphics on the current game should be made individually accessible via “Tactical Feed”.
Those responsible for social media at the clubs should also be given the opportunity to enrich the broadcast of the games with additional content, so that fans can find current opinions from the clubs in one place.
It remained unclear how fans should reach this enriched feed. So far, Sky has been broadcasting almost all games, and interaction with the video content is currently not possible. In her speech, Hopfen spoke of an exciting change and said, “Technological progress is leading from broadcast to single cast.”
Drone reports caused confusion
A few days after the speech, reports from the specialist magazines “ran” and “Kicker” caused a stir. There it was said that the DFL had concrete plans to interview players, for example in penalty situations, using a drone before the shot was taken. The German football league made it clear on Twitter: “There are no plans for drone interviews.”
The reports still sparked social media excitement – it was just too amusing to imagine a disgruntled player bolting the interview drone out of the line of fire as soon as it started asking how important the goal would be if the ball went into the net.
The misunderstanding could have arisen from a report by the DFL. As part of the trade fair, the league reported on a football game in which new technologies were used as a test. Including a mini drone that “accompanied both teams onto the pitch before kick-off.”
source: table football, ran, DFL (PDF), DFL press