The Host Broadcast Training Initiative (HBTI) for the 2022 Commonwealth Games, in which the global sports production company and host broadcast partner Sunset+Vine is partnered with Birmingham City University, Create Central, WMCA and Solihull College, is offering paid work experience placements on its outside broadcast and studio productions.

"This is their first job in broadcast," David Tippett, managing director of Sunset+Vine, told insidethegames during an invitational visit to look behind the scenes at the IBC located within the NEC.

"For the last 18 months we have been recruiting and training for this moment.

"So all of those involved will walk away with, if not a formal qualification, a significant element on their CVs.

"Some of them already caught the eye of some of our clients."

Nicola Turner, head of legacy at Birmingham 2022, described the scheme as "a genius idea", adding: "The opportunity to learn about cutting edge broadcasting from global experts and a chance to work on a Commonwealth Games - these are 150 once-in-a-lifetime possibilities."

During the Games roles undertaken include content creators, production co-ordinators, media managers, camera operators, edit assistants, loggers, live gallery PAs, assistant floor managers and technical roles with S+Vs Outside Broadcast suppliers.

A good number of those involved in the HBTI scheme are located in a section devoted to creating clips of the action for social media.

"We are creating the clips here and sending to an Organising Committee/CGF Digital Asset Management portal, and all of their stakeholders who have digital social rights have access to that," Tippett said.

"That could be a main rights holder like federations such as World Athletics or World Rugby, so they can access the content, or it could be a sponsor, such as Longines - they are doing any record that gets broken, they have the rights to put that out on social channels.

"So the people you see working here are curating the action for social and digital platforms.

"Host Broadcast has realised that there is a big appetite for this kind of content."

Tippett, who hosted a behind-the-scenes tour for insidethegames at the IBC, stressed the importance of the first line of operatives coming into contact with live feeds sent on from all the 2022 Games venues.

"All those feeds come in to us and we monitor everything," he said.

"We make sure the feeds are OK, we test the audio, we test the vision, make sure everything is in place.

"We’ve got contribution circuits, which come from the venues into the IBC, and distribution circuits which are the same feeds that are passed on to the rightsholders.

"Everything is coming in here, and this team is checking the technical side of it.

"Earlier today we had a technical problem at the athletics, and the vision switcher wasn’t working properly, which meant they couldn’t add graphics.

"So we wouldn’t have put that onto the distribution circuit until we had resolved that problem.

"On day one you always expect there to be some sort of an issue, something that needs to be resolved.

"It might be a circuit, might be a problem with the truck, could be anything really.

"But once it’s up and running it’s normally OK - we check everything every day though."

Tippett explained that there are numerous packages and options for rightsholder accessing the live feeds.

"Take for example the BBC.

"They are taking all of the feeds and making their main output on BBC 1, so they’re choosing whether to be showing Adam Peaty in the swimming, or Olivia Breen running, or the England 3x3 basketball players.

"They’ve got everything coming in and they are editorialising it into one linear stream.

"But there is a second channel, BBC 3, which was showing 3x3 basketball for example.

"And then BBC is taking all of the feeds and putting them on the i-player.

"So they are doing everything, whereas other broadcasters might do something to a lesser extent.

"So for Channel 7 in Australia, for instance, or Sky New Zealand, they are thinking more about the time difference and how do you cater for an audience that’s waking up when the Games has been taking place overnight."

The services are put together like differing chocolate box selections.

One of the services provided is a six-channel service which condenses everything into six linear feeds, according to a schedule devised by Dave Gordon, head of major events at BBC Sport from 2001 to 2013, who has been persuaded to come out of retirement to spend two years on this project as head of host broadcasting.

"Sky New Zealand are taking that service as well as a main channel which is showing the best action at any given time," said Tippett.

"So rather than take 11 feeds back, which is what BBC is doing for the i-player, they are only taking six feeds.

"It’s an international service which is not focusing on one specific nation.

"It is catering more for that tier of rightsholder, because its costly to send the local feeds abroad, so six is a much more manageable number.

"I think that’s what Sky New Zealand do for the Olympics also."