Keeping Football Stadiums in Sync with Timing Systems from Masterclock

Posted by Laura B
Friday, 23 April 2021




Original Post: Masterclock

With football holding one of the top spots in the news this week, we thought we'd take a look back at one of the most exciting projects in Masterclock's 25 year history.

The 2014 FIFA World Cup brought extraordinary opportunities to Brazil. To showcase their love and dedication to the sport vast and extensive construction projects were deemed necessary in order to fully prepare the country for the influx of people as well as media attention around the event.

Organisers worked hard to develop and maintain efficiencies wherever possible to ensure the focus would stay on the games. Careful control of the movement of millions of visitors throughout the various facilities was a considered a key factor in ensuring that people enjoyed their time at the event, so a number of solutions including increased manpower and cutting edge technology were put in place to keep the flow of people and data as smooth as possible.
 
Masterclock, working with local distributor Metrum, deployed 78 of their NTDS86 digital displays throughout the facility, using the existing network wiring to tie the displays into the rest of the facility network.

All of Masterclock's NTDS digital clocks sync to any NTP source for accurate traceable time, and the displays were configured to remain synchronised to the MCR5000 (now replaced with the GMR5000), which received accurate time from the GPS constellation and distributed it across the network to the NTDS displays and other necessary systems. The GMR5000 is a high-precision, multi-function master clocks that can act as an NTP server, PTP grandmaster, time code generator or frequency reference.

By ensuring that the facility systems and the staff, visitors, and players were all in sync, Masterclock helped the FIFA World Cup keep the focus on the games and the spirit of the tournament.

In case you were wondering, England didn't win that World Cup and were knocked out in the Group Stages. Germany beat Argentina 1-0 in the final to take home the tropy for the fourth time.

For more information on any of the time servers, masterclocks or displays from Masterclock please get in touch with one of our knowledgeable engineers.