Are you ready for some football? Or, to put it another way, can you believe it’s time for football already?
Preseason NFL football started on Thursday, and of course, we were there. And now you’ll see our trucks and engineers at football games across the country every weekend through December.
Nick Ray on C42 and Blake Blomstrom on C41 were side by side Thursday at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, when the Pittsburgh Steelers beat up on the Philadelphia Eagles in their preseason opener. We will be covering all the preseason Steelers games for our friends at KDKA in Pittsburgh (and for our own fans at the PSSI International Teleport). Here we go, Steelers!
Pittsburgh-based Dave “Mitch” Mitchell and the Arizona truck headed to Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio, where the Chicago Bears took on the Cincinnati Bengals on Thursday night.
Mati Kerpen was at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, with the Junior truck as the Cleveland Browns faced the New York Giants.
Steve Hagerty and K18 were back at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, when the Tennessee Titans faced the Green Bay Packers. Steve’ll be back again next week for more Packers football.
Dave Brin and C15 were at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, where the San Francisco 49ers eked out a win against the visiting Dallas Cowboys.
Dave Meyer and K20 were at CenturyLink Field in Seattle, Washington, when the Indianapolis Colts were in town to battle the Seattle Seahawks.
And Marty Smitherman and K38 were at EverBank Field in Jacksonville, Florida, where the New Orleans Saints beat the Jacksonville Jaguars.
And that was only Thursday night!
Steve Chaisson and the Starlight truck continue the fun on Friday night at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in Oakland, California, when the Detroit Lions face the Oakland Raiders. That’s it for this week, but look out for more football action from PSSI Global Services each and every week for the rest of the year. We are ready and excited for a great season of NFL and college football!
We’ve got plenty of fighting on our schedules year-round.
Brian Blomstrom will have DC9 at the Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Friday night when Roy Jones Jr. Boxing Promotions presents Max “Baby Faced Assassin” Ornelas, a Las Vegas local, battling Raymond “Filipino Tornado” Tabugon in the main event. The co-main event features Kendo “Tremendo” Castaneda battling former WBC champion Jesus “Chuy” Gutierrez. Should be a great night of boxing in Vegas.
Mark Huss and the LA Sprinter will be back at the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles, California, on Friday night for LA Fight Club. The main event features Genaro “El Conde” Gamez facing Recky “The Terror” Dulay. The co-main event features Emilio “The Kid” Sanchez facing Kevin Rivers Jr. and Tenochtitlan “T-Dog” Nava battling David Perez. It’s a great atmosphere at the historic Belasco in downtown LA, and fans around the world will be able to see it for themselves thanks to Mark’s transmission.
It’s been a busy week for Mark, who kicked it off Monday alongside Brian Blomstrom at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, for the finale of ABC’s “The Bachelorette.” Becca Kufrin gave Garrett Yrigoyen the coveted final rose, and poor Blake Horstmann went home a bachelor. All three were live in Burbank with host Chris Harrison to recap what has been an emotional roller coaster of a season.
After covering the fires in northern California, CNN has shifted their focus to the Holy Fire near Lake Elsinore in Orange County. If CNN is there, then so is PSSI News Group. This time it’s Bob Tweed joining Lorenzo Dottori to work long hours in very challenging conditions.
Meanwhile, our intrepid (and exhausted) Yellowstone crew are making their way back to their home bases after a challenging and rewarding week of live broadcasts for National Geographic. Please join us all in extending a hearty congratulations to Mike Howley, Chris Hovden, Ray Loyko and Mike Sheehan for a flawless run of transmissions from the depths of the National Park. Special thanks to engineer in charge (EIC) John Bright and project manager Garrett Hunt who went above and beyond the scope of transmission to assist in all aspects of production and scheduling and help pull off what was an amazing series of live shows. The whole team has earned a few days of rest!
Tech manager Tracy Michaels and bike racing veteran Wes Hill are heading into the home stretch of the 2018 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah. Tracy’s keeping on top of every aspect of each day’s new TV compound, which will be in Salt Lake City on Friday, Snowbird Resort on Saturday and Park City for the final stage on Sunday. Tune in on FS2 each day to catch a glimpse of all the hard work these guys have put into making this dynamic live event a success.
Rick Kolinek’s back in Minnesota, but he’s taking a break from Major League Soccer to cover some bowling! Rick’s at the Cedarvale Lanes in Eagan, Minnesota, for Saturday’s broadcast of the BowlerX.com Twin Cities Open, one of many stops on the 2018 Professional Women’s Bowling Association tour. Next week Rick’s back in Minnesota yet again — this time for preseason football!
More of PSSI Global Services’ many Ricks are hard at work this weekend. Rick Ball and Rick Varney are enjoying a week of college basketball in the Bahamas. It’s not all sun and fun for the guys, as they’ve been working their way through the heat to set up one of our flyaway systems outside the Atlantis Imperial Arena on Paradise Island. Now that the setup is complete, University of Kentucky hoops fans are enjoying their hard work on ESPN’s live broadcast of the Wildcats’ foreign tour. Both guys will head back to our Orlando shop with all of our equipment to assist our Satcom team in prepping trucks for the upcoming football season. Onward!
Zane Michaels and Joe Kelderhouse have spent the better part of two weeks down in Florida with the CK30 mobile teleport. The guys were in the state for WWE Raw at the Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville and then headed down to Orlando’s Amway Center for Tuesday’s SmackDown show. Immediately following the show, Joe took CK30 over to our Orlando shop for some TLC on the truck’s big antenna. Norm Bearce and company worked overtime to go through the entire truck to make sure she’s running smoothly. While they did that, our friends at AT&T installed some equipment to make this flagship truck a mobile fiber pop for every single arena with connectivity to AT&T’s Global Video network. The guys tested out the new setup on the Orlando City Stadium with great success, adding yet another dynamic mode of transmission to what is already one of the most powerful trucks in the broadcast industry. Exciting things to come!
The C27, another mobile teleport supercharged with AT&T Global Video services, is at NASCAR’s fastest track, the Michigan International Speedway. Kyle Meyer and Jonathan Ayala are on hand for this week’s installment in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. The fun starts on Friday with the MENSC practice and qualifying, and then Saturday will feature the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series LTi Printing 200. The weekend wraps up on Sunday with the Pure Michigan 400. It promises to be a weekend of racing you won’t want to miss!
Justin Roszak is back at it for another NASCAR Xfinity Series event at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington. It’s the Rock N Roll Tequila 170 this weekend, which includes the Trans-Am Series and the Formula-3 Americas Championship powered by Honda, as well as the Xfinity Series race on Saturday night.
Not too far up the road from Justin, we have the week’s only golf event — and it’s a big one. Golf Channel superstars Craig Henry and Kevin Spangler are cranking out long days at the 100th PGA Championship, live from the Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, Missouri. Gary Woodland and Rickie Fowler are currently atop the leaderboard, but it’s anyone’s tournament as we head into the final rounds this weekend. Kevin and Craig have every angle covered with extensive satellite and fiber transmissions coming in and out of C31. PSSI News Group’s Steve Mills is also at Bellerive for CNN’s coverage of this huge event.
After the PGA Championship, our golf schedule ramps right back up. We’ve got five tournaments and events coming up, so tune in to next week’s roundup for all of that action, along with plenty of fighting, football and so much more!