I have a strange feeling every time Bayer game is on. I can’t shake off strange sensation that club name is one of the biggest pharmaceutical company in the world. Primary reason is because I have instant association to illness, pain, and ache in general. That is really strange cooperation between the club and the sponsor here. Usually you want to have main sponsor with instant positive thoughts (I am not saying helping people with medicine and headache pills is not positive, on the contrary) but it gives FIRST through to pharmacy and sickness, that is for sure. This unique (for football) stadium, build in 1958 and renovated after, several times, has interesting south section build as only as vertical VIP Box suites which make it recognizable right away on the first sight. And those VIP suites are not only there physically, but everyone watching game on TV from that stadium gets that VIP treatment every game as well. What I mean by that? Well, check out the grades and final FICAZ INDEX score for BayArena bellow and you’ll know what I mean by that VIP treatment.
Camera Angle and Center Zoom
Our man Mr. “George Hammond” has all predispositions to deliver best ever TV football experience possible. The main broadcasting camera is high and far away from the pitch as should be, and “George” has been doing good work in some criteria, on some not so. Here, we are having the angle which bring instant highest score possible of 50 points for the most important criteria of “camera angle” and as you can see on the screenshot also for the center zoom also highest score possible of 10 points. So far Mr “Hammond” collected full 100% of possible score so far, not bad.
Check the video bellow to compare how good is Bayer 04 Leverkusen TV coverage in comparison to awful FC Bayern Munich TV coverage.
Calculation:
Camera angle score for Bayer 04 Leverkusen – BayArena = 50 points
Center Zoom score for Bayer 04 Leverkusen – BayArena = 10 points
Zoom top (far side)
The far side of the pitch zoom always is problematic for cameraman, I think mainly because of their urge to zoom more, urge to give us a chance to see more, to see bigger players, they think they are far and too small (I am guessing of course, I have no idea what they thinking but that looks like to me as logical explanation of their behavior on most of the TV broadcasts), because they probably like a feeling that we (we=TV watchers) can’t see so far on the other side. Well let me tell you “George” we can. Most of the people has oversized flat screens and if we can see it perfectly fine from Camp Nou we certainly can see here too. So “George”: Jaffa, Kree, and zoom out!
Calculation:
Camera Zoom FAR side for Bayer 04 Leverkusen – BayArena = 3 points
Zoom bottom (near side)
Here, it is even more incomprehensible why in the world would you zoom in so much, why “George”, why??? Give it rest, show us more greens and wide pitch, zoom out. Terrible job. Barely 1 point. We want to see wide pitch not micro-game designed by your trigger happy fingers on camera’s zoom button.
Calculation:
Camera Zoom NEAR side for Bayer 04 Leverkusen – BayArena = 1 point
Zoom Corners
Just above the average field of view from both corner. 6 from 8 is very good result. As you can see on the screenshots, “George” is reasonably zoomed out ans shown us the whole box, outside the box too which is fantastic job.
Calculation:
Camera Zoom CORNER for Bayer 04 Leverkusen – BayArena = 6 points
Extra points
I did not notice any special feature regarding special cameras here, so for all that zero points. For HREN BONUS I am giving it 3 because of overall good fell watching LIVE football on TV from this stadium. And just a final note. I love seeing Rudi Völler in the frame at least once during every broadcast. I liked him as player and I like him now as general manager. I like seeing his cute face on TV.
Calculation:
Extra points (max. 16 points) = 3 points
Points summary
| Criteria | Points | Max. |
| Camera Angle | 50 | 50 |
| Zoom Center | 10 | 10 |
| Zoom Far – Top | 3 | 8 |
| Zoom Near – Bottom | 1 | 8 |
| Corner | 6 | 8 |
| Extra | 3 | 16 |
| FICAZ Index | 73 | 100 |
Bayer 04 Leverkusen – BayArena
FICAZ INDEX = 73
Tell us in the comments what you think. Thanks for taking the time to contribute. Let’s enjoy in every fracking football game around the planet like it is Barca game, every game.
Mario Hren
Links and contacts for this FICAZ Index:
I would not complain here much. To be honest if every stadium in the world has TV coverage like this one, this website and FICAZ INDEX would not exist, nor would be needed.
