aroese football club KÍ Klaksvík had a remarkable run last summer, making it to the third qualifying round of the 2023 Champions League – the first team from the Faroe Islands ever to do so. It all started with their first qualifier against Hungarian club Ferencváros, which was broadcast via OneWeb’s low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. A FOOTBALL FIRST The match, held in KÍ Klaksvík’s Við Djúpumýrar stadium, was the first of its kind, offering live coverage from the remote Faroes to a global audience, including Paramount+ subscribers in the US. “They have no traditional satellite facilities over there,” explains Kieran Kunhya, CEO at Open Broadcast Systems. “They have been using the internet for the last five years, but are dependent on fibre optic cables, and these regularly get cut.” Open Broadcast Systems provided C-100 encoders during the match, delivering the broadcast to football fans across the globe. Satellite broadcasts are far from new, but they tend to be born out of necessity rather than being the ideal solution. “There have been existing older types of satellite solutions available, but these aren’t
USING ONEWEB’S LEO SATELLITES FOR SPORTS IS A GAME CHANGER
really suitable for sports,” says Kunhya. “They’ve traditionally focused on news gathering.” OneWeb’s LEO satellites preserve the signal’s quality, while offering a solution for remote locations. “Using OneWeb for sports is a game changer,” begins Kunhya. “They do sports transmissions from remote locations – cycling, golf and so on.” As a new technology, some technical challenges are associated with LEO. “There are lots of little satellites moving in the sky instead of a few big
TOP FLIGHT KÍ Klaksvík hosted the Hungarian team Ferencváros in the Champions League qualifiers
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