Sportklub is our first interviewee in a series of short interviews we will be conducting with our customers this year. Sportklub is the first subscription sports channel broadcasting in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Slovenia, and North Macedonia. The channel broadcasts many different sporting events, including the major football leagues, basketball, tennis, American football, ice hockey, volleyball, handball, athletics and golf.
We had the opportunity to interview Sportklub CTO, Mr Milan Vukasinovic, who explained the challenges Sportklub faced before we started working with them and how we helped them improve their business.

Like many of our customers, Sportklub faced challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic. We were curious to learn more about that time.
Milan Vukasinovic: Sportklub is a brand whose main goal is to broadcast sports content for the ”ex-Yu space” (the former Yugoslav republics). In the first wave of Covid-19, we faced the problem that almost all sports broadcasts were cancelled. At that time, the only sporting events available were those where famous athletes played online, and the plan was to broadcast them. Of course, these signals could not be received via satellite and then the SRT (Secure Reliable Transport) protocol was introduced as an adequate substitute for satellite transmissions. After 2 years, Covid-19 was over (I hope so), but SRT remained, and the SRT protocol is one of the things that WISI and Sportklub successfully collaborated on. Our company expanded its business and started distributing signals to other broadcasters in addition to receiving signals, and this part of the business is based on solutions from WISI.

We were interested in what Sportklub wanted to achieve before we started working together and what obstacles they tried to overcome?
Milan Vukasinovic: We were looking for equipment that could receive signals in the IP range, convert them and send them to other broadcasters. We did not find a good enough and reliable device that combined all the necessary functions in one ”box”. I saw the announcement that WISI had implemented SRT in its devices and it turned out that the Inca was exactly what we needed – a device that could do everything. I am talking about one device in particular, the Inca 4440. We tested many devices/brands, each of which only did part of the job. To get the functionality we wanted, several devices had to be connected, which is not only complicated but also much more expensive than the solutions we got with the Inca from WISI. But it is not the first device from WISI. We have a couple of Chameleons from WISI that are the “Swiss Army Knives” for companies like us.
Vukasinovic explains in detail how WISI helped Sportklub, citing the use of the Inca platform as an example.
Milan Vukasinovic: We managed to take a large number of SRT streams and process them for our needs (we turn SRT into MPEG-TS). Apart from the fact that we use these signals, we also need to deliver them to other broadcasters who all have different requirements (some prefer interlace, others progressive, some want a lower bitrate or a different format). We have successfully combined all these functions with the Inca 4440 with additional MMA -HXC-103 – HEVC transcoder module.
For more information, visit wisigroup.com

As always, we want to hear from our customers how we have concretely helped them improve their business. Vukasinovic explains the good cooperation between Sportklub and WISI and why they chose us as a reliable partner.
Milan Vukasinovic: Just as WISI follows new technological trends, Sportklub also monitors the development of technology and adapts to the new requirements. We are always in the mood to see what WISI has to offer. If we see room for future collaboration, we are in the mood to test the equipment. WISI is here to give us a try. So far, all the devices we have tested have met the requirements and after testing them, we bought them. We have the functionality we wanted, the price range is acceptable, the devices are reliable enough and the support from WISI is great.
At WISI we believe in listening to our customers, guiding them and supporting them on their journey. We wanted to know what Sportklub values about WISI when it comes to projects.
Milan Vukasinovic: The friendly attitude of both the WISI team and the local dealers. It is not a buyer-seller relationship, but in the realisation of the project we were a team with a common goal to successfully implement the desired requirements. It is interesting to note that WISI did not have a complete solution at the beginning of the last project, but they listened to our requests and improved their offer very quickly. So we got the functionality we wanted and WISI added another feature to its portfolio.
It is always interesting to hear what you would tell another company about us?
Milan Vukasinovic: Only sincere praise. In conversations with fellow engineers from other companies, I will always recommend WISI’s products, as I have done so far.
Are there any other interesting stories about Sportklub you would like to share with us and the audience?
Milan Vukasinovic: One interesting story was that we needed a device, but until we tested it on site, we did not know if all the requirements were met. WISI decided to take a ”risk” through a local distributor, i.e. if the device met the requirements, we could keep it, and if not, we could return it without obligation. The ”risk” paid off and the device has now been in operation for a few months.
About Sportklub
Sportklub is the first subscription sports channel broadcasting in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Slovenia since 2006, in Croatia since 2007 and in North Macedonia since 2011.
Sportklub broadcasts many different sporting events, including the major football leagues, basketball, tennis, American football, ice hockey, volleyball, handball, athletics, and golf.
For more information, visit sportklub.com
About WISI Communications GmbH & Co KG
Wilhelm Sihn Jr. founded WISI in 1926 in Niefern-Oeschelbronn (Germany). More than 90 years later, the high-tech company is one of the world’s pioneers in broadband reception and distribution technology. Today, WISI is active globally in the business fields: components for broadband networks, fiber optics for broadband, digital signal reception, processing and modulation for TV and radio, and in-house multimedia. WISI currently employs 600 people at sites in Germany, Europe, Canada, and Asia. The company has subsidiaries in France, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Bulgaria, Spain, Canada, Dubai, and China. In addition, WISI works with more than 100 partners in major international markets.
For more information, visit wisigroup.com