Scaling operations and enhancing viewer experience with advanced monitoring
At A Glance – The Players
DAZN
DAZN, the world’s leading sports entertainment platform, was the exclusive global broadcast partner for the FIFA Club World Cup 2025™, which saw 32 of the most successful clubs from every continent compete in a single tournament spanning 63 matches. With global rights to the tournament and growing demand for the group’s other sports content around the world, DAZN needed to ensure that Its infrastructure could continue to support the complexity and pace of some of the world’s most high-profile and dynamic sporting events.
Techex
As a longstanding technical partner, Techex provided systems integration, as well as architectural and delivery support for DAZN’s flagship Leeds Media Control Room (MCR). As well as supporting the design and implementation of a scalable and cost-effective monitoring workflow tailored for the flagship event, Techex also employed technologies such as tx edge to protect and monitor DAZN’s signals, helping DAZN to optimise the quality of signal and ensure flawless delivery.
TAG Video Systems
TAG Video Systems supplied the real-time monitoring layer that supported DAZN’s service assurance strategy. Building on an existing deployment, TAG provided enhanced visibility across compressed and uncompressed streams, multiviewer outputs, and critical points throughout the signal chain — from contribution to transmission.
This deployment also marked a transition from a legacy system to a 100% software, IP-native solution — enabling DAZN to reduce reliance on fixed infrastructure and respond even more quickly to dynamic event-driven needs.
The Challenge
The project posed a unique combination of commercial and technical challenges:
- Short Lead Time: Working within a tight timeframe, DAZN had to design and implement a monitoring system tailored for a high-profile tournament.
- Event-Driven Workflow: Unlike permanent infrastructure, the solution needed to be adaptable and effortlessly integrated into existing MCR operations.
- High Volume, High Stakes: The final stages of the tournament were broadcast globally and involved numerous contribution feeds, demanding flawless signal integrity and quick error detection.
- Stakeholder Expectations: With commercial and technical stakeholders involved — including rights holders, sponsors, and end-users — the margin for error was nearly zero.
The Solution
To meet these demands, DAZN deployed a monitoring solution, with support from TAG and Techex, which also utilised TAG’s software-based platform. This architecture provided real-time visibility across the entire signal chain, from feed acquisition in the Leeds MCR to distribution handoff points.
Key Capabilities:
- Flexible Mosaic Outputs: TAG was used to create custom mosaics that DAZN operators relied on in real time across various locations including Leeds, Bangor and Hyderabad.
- RTP and HLS Stream Monitoring: DAZN monitored multiple formats simultaneously, including compressed feeds over RTP and HLS delivery streams, enabling end-to-end confidence.
- Adaptive Layouts: DAZN, with support from Techex, leveraged TAG’s layout editor and operator console features to quickly spin up new views based on evolving production needs during the tournament window.
- Cloud-Capable & On-Prem Ready: The platform was deployed on-prem in the Leeds MCR using COTS hardware, but retaining full compatibility with cloud workflows – supporting DAZN’s hybrid architecture goals.
Importantly, this software-based approach enabled DAZN to unlock greater operational flexibility, faster deployment, and seamless integration into its IP-native environment.
How it Works
DAZN’s implementation was anchored by a centralized architecture capable of managing over 5,000 unique video sources and 300 mosaic layouts. These are processed at DAZN’s core data centres and seamlessly routed to operational hubs in Leeds, Bangor, and Hyderabad – supported by TAG’s Media Control System (MCS). A fully redundant central interface reduces bandwidth usage, eliminates infrastructure duplication, and allows any source to be routed to any operator or screen without reconfiguration.
- Contribution Monitoring: Incoming feeds from event venues were ingested into two key data centres and received as H.264 and H.265 as a combination of SDR and HDR content.
- TAG Probing & Mosaic Generation: TAG monitored signal integrity and performance, while generating multi-viewer mosaics for operator stations.
- Multicast Distribution: These mosaics were then distributed via multicast to multiple viewing points – from operations centres to commercial review stations – using a lightweight infrastructure.
- Dynamic Layouts: Operators used to adjust views in real time, including the addition of graphic branding and repositioned tiles during the tournament.
- Post-Match Evaluation: DAZN reviewed incidents and verified service quality for compliance and reporting using recorded outputs and logs from TAG.
The resulting system is lean, low-latency, and robust – tailored for an event-driven use case while maintaining broadcast-grade standards.
This technology allowed DAZN to enhance its monitoring infrastructure, creating a centralized control platform for operations, maintenance and management.
Looking Forward
The success of the FIFA Club World Cup deployment sets the stage for similar future broadcasts at DAZN. Following Techex’s systems integration, as well as architectural and delivery support, DAZN’s new MCR infrastructure, incorporating TAG’s platform, has been validated for high-visibility, high-profile events and the model can be replicated across upcoming marquee tournaments and regional events.
What’s Next:
- Flexible Event Scaling: DAZN’s architecture, already optimized for business-as-usual operations, required no structural changes for the Club World Cup – only a scaling of resources to accommodate the increased volume while continuing regular programming.
- Hybrid Cloud Exploration: As DAZN continues to move to more cloud-native operations, TAG’s open architecture and proven cloud deployments offer a clear migration path.
- Smarter Signal Validation: Future use of features like Content Matching and Penalty Box may be introduced to further streamline operations and reduce manual monitoring workloads.
- Postmortem Reviews: TAG’s real-time logging and visual playback will support detailed post-event evaluations and SLA validations with rights holders.
“With the number of different feeds and variants required for DAZN’s broadcasting of the FIFA Club World Cup – on top of our usual workload – flexibility and scalability were the priority to ensure our Master Control Room (MCR) was monitoring as effectively as possible. Our partnership with Techex and TAG has enabled DAZN to continue delivering an unparalleled entertainment experience to our users, supported by our cutting-edge live sports infrastructure,” said David Christmas, Head of Broadcast Project Engineering at DAZN.
