WIRELESS MANAGEMENT AT THE ‘24 AFL GRAND FINAL

There is no doubt that the AFL Grand Final is Australia’s largest sporting event. Held annually at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the game itself accounts for about two hours of broadcast on a Saturday afternoon, and there is also the pre-game entertainment that continues to grow in scope and complexity. The nearby Footy Fest in the surrounding parklands and the televised Grand Final Parade the day before the match are also part of the scope.

Profiles RF Management (PRM) were engaged by the AFL again this year to undertake RF Spectrum Management across all activities at the MCG, The Footy Festival, the Grand Final Parade and, for peace of mind, an AFLW match at another oval in the precinct. In total across the Grand Final Week, there were 899 frequencies under management from 135 stakeholders.

When asked why frequency management at the AFL major events is important, Frizz Ferguson, AFL Broadcast Manager said, “At an event of national importance such as the Grand Final, we need to engage experts to do a job as complex as this. With PRM onsite, it gives us assurance that any issues can be fixed quickly and efficiently with no risk to the broadcast.”

Frequency management is a small but vital part of an event like this, and it cannot be achieved without good working relationships and communication between all parties in the first place. Recognising that RF Spectrum Management is important to their event, the AFL deliver their scope, objectives and key contacts to PRM in a timely manner which facilitates the communication and relationships with all the other stakeholders.

As with all live events, most of the hard work is in the planning stage and this is also true for RF Spectrum Management. PRM commenced working on this project in July. This included reaching out to the major broadcasters, both rights holders and non-rights holders, multiple live production companies that were going to be onsite, communications providers and activation managers to ascertain their RF requirements. It really isn’t possible to conjure up nearly 900 compatible frequencies the day before the gig.

To do this, PRM utilise a number of tools. The primary tool for the event is the frequency management software FreqCoord (www.freqcoord.com). FreqCoord is cloud-hosted and can support multiple users concurrently, which was necessary as there were three spectrum coordinators onsite at show critical times.

Spectrum monitoring stations were deployed throughout the MCG and parklands and supplemented by spectrum coordinators patrolling the precinct to identify rogue users or assist legitimate stakeholders who were experiencing issues.

Throughout the broadcast and in the days following the match, PRM followed up with the larger stakeholders to make sure they did not experience any issues and that PRM could learn from any mistakes that may have been made. This is especially important as it helps to build trust in the process and ensures future events can be managed effectively. The stakeholders included the broadcast facilities provider, live production crews both inside and outside the stadium, hospitality AV providers, radio broadcasters, two-way radio providers and sports presentation. All reported that there were no issues – a job well done!

Main Photo Credit: Mushroom Creative House – Mackenzie Sweetnam