5G: The catalyst for immersive sports experiences

The Tour De France is the world’s most well-known cycling race and a monumental challenge for broadcasters. This year, the race generated 105 hours of live coverage with 190 countries broadcasting the race between 176 riders who covered a total of 3,351 kilometres in front of approximately 12 million spectators along the route. The race had 21 stages across different terrain and conditions with 60 kilometres of AV cable for media coverage at the finish of each stage.

As such, the technical challenges of delivering lives feeds, streaming, telemetry and drones for broadcasting the race live meant there was appetite for examining how 5G technology could be used to meet the demands of coverage with intelligent service planning and optimisation.

The Tour de France was an ideal case study for the TM Forum and its partners, which set out to illustrate how 5G technology could be leveraged to enhance the viewing and fan experience of the world famous cycle race…