World Archery has unveiled details of its new “Lockdown Knockout” tournament involving eight archers taking part from remote locations and sending video streams from their smartphone, tablet or laptop.
The competition, which will take place next month, will be streamed live on the federation’s YouTube and Facebook platforms and highlights will be made available to linear television channels.
The launch of the competition, which will feature four male and four female archers, comes with World Archery’s international competition calendar suspended due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Participating archers will send two IP video streams – archer and target – via 4G or wifi to a remote production site set up by QTV Sports, the UK-based multi-media production company that is World Archery’s host broadcaster.
QTV Sports will cut the footage live from its base in Glasgow with commentary provided by World Archery commentator Karim Bashir, who is based in England, and analysis provided by the World Archery team in Lausanne. The signals are to be mixed with graphics and commentary (using Vmix software) and streamed live.
The innovative project follows on from a similar remote initiative introduced by the Professional Darts Corporation and Matchroom Sport agency. The PDC Home Tour began a week ago and involves darts players competing against each other from their homes and filming footage themselves.
The PDC Home Tour is being streamed on the StreamAMG-powered PDCTV streaming platform to all registered users for free but rights have also been distributed to various international broadcasters. A series of bookmakers are also streaming the action on their websites.
Participants in the inaugural Lockdown Knockout will be announced on April 27 before the qualifiers begin on May 1. The quarter-finals will be held from May 9 to 12 before the semi-finals on May 14-15 and the final on May 17.
The winner will receive CHF1,000 (€950/$1,025) in prize money with the runner-up awarded CHF500.
