Host Broadcast Services (HBS) has been appointed to undertake the race coverage production for Superleague Formula, a new motor racing series which launches on 30-31 August at Donington Park in the United Kingdom and covers six countries in its inaugural season.

Superleague Formula is a fusion of two of the world’s most popular sports, harnessing the passion and tribal loyalty of football with the thrill and excitement of motor racing. There will be a field of V12-powered 750 horsepower single-seater race cars bearing the colours of the world’s leading football teams. Traditional rivals on the pitch will do battle at some of the world’s greatest racetracks. The Series is billed as “more than just a race, it’s a spectacular entertainment package for all the family”.

AC Milan, Al Ain, RSC Anderlecht, AS Roma, Beijing Guoan FC, Borussia Dortmund, Corinthians, FC Basel, FC Porto, CR Flamengo, Galatasaray, Liverpool FC, Olympiacos, PSV Eindhoven, Rangers, Sevilla FC, and Tottenham Hotspur are the 17 clubs to have signed up so far.

HBS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the international sports marketing group, Infront Sports & Media, was selected for the production role in part because of the Infront Group's experience with the HANNspree Superbike World Championship (SBK). Infront has been the majority shareholder in SBK promoter, FG Sport, since May 2007. Using its expertise in host broadcast, HBS has enhanced coverage of the superbike races, resulting in increased interest from broadcasters.

Superleague Formula’s inaugural race season visits six major circuits across Europe, from August – November 2008, as indicated in the table above.

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On Saturday 9 August Host Broadcast Services (HBS) kicked off its four-year term as host broadcaster of the French Football League (Ligue 1) with a 9-match multiplex. More than 500 staff and over 100 cameras were deployed throughout France to ensure that all operations went smoothly, providing a promising beginning to HBS' involvement with the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP).

HBS' coverage of the Ligue included some major innovations. For the first time in the history of French football mobile phone users were able to follow selected matches (8 of the weekend's 10) on their handsets in real time thanks to a specific Mobile International Signal (MIS). Produced by a dedicated team of new media specialists, the MIS ensures optimal image quality and appropriate framing for mobile users. Another HBS innovation is a searchable clip database featuring match highlights, interviews, contentious actions, slow-motion replays and more, created during each match by a team of specially trained loggers who "tag" clips with relevant keywords. The database is a spin-off of the well-received Clip Compilation Channel, inaugurated during HBS' host broadcast of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™.

Jean-Guillaume Welgryn (left), LFP Deputy Director of Media and Development, and François-Charles Bideaux, Director of Production for HBS France Production, perform quality control on Day 1

This successful start to the French football season is an excellent example of the internal cross-fertilisation that allows the company's ever-growing expertise to be rapidly and effectively applied to new fields. HBS is proud to have been selected by the LFP and aims to continue providing production services of the highest standard throughout the 342 matches per season included in its contract as well as to continuously introduce innovations to better serve the domestic and international audience.

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HBS, the Host Broadcaster of the 2002, 2006 and 2010 FIFA World Cups™, and Media Passport, a company specialising in providing assistance and training in the fields of communication and media, are proud to inaugurate the BROADCAST ACADEMY. The Broadcast Academy, a 50/50 joint venture between HBS and Media Passport, is already operational and has signed several training contracts throughout the world. The academy, strengthened by HBS and Media Passport’s expertise, currently has a team of over 50 international trainers, experts who are able to offer customised instruction in four languages (English, French, Spanish and Portuguese). The two companies have separately trained more than 10,000 people to date, including students as well as experienced veterans, in more than 50 countries throughout the world.

The Broadcast Academy is the only Broadcast and Media training company to use the world’s first-ever LIVE professional sports broadcast simulator: the Live TV Simulator.

Up until today there was no practical training solution allowing sports directors to redo their broadcasts at will. But now directors of televised sports broadcasts and their teams have a professional simulator, as well as a convenient and accelerated method for practicing and perfecting their technique, without any of live television's constraints: it is all at once a football pitch, 22 players and their ball, the referee and linesmen, the ball-boys, enthusiastic spectators, an OB van and its cameras, kilometres of cabling, tons of equipment and an entire team of camera operators and technicians all contained in two rack bays (fitted into five small flight cases) designed to be transported by plane and quickly installed within the customers’ workplace, thereby bypassing any travel expenses for trainees.

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