It is an intensely busy (and exciting) weekend for PSSI Global Services. All but two of our nearly 50 Global Services engineers are working across the country, PSSI News Group and PSSI International Teleport (PIT) are humming along, and our offices and shops are working overtime to keep up with the pace. No summer vacation around here!
Let’s start with golf, which has us busy year-round.
Up at the beautiful, Nicklaus-designed Montrêux Golf and Country Club between Reno, Nevada, and Lake Tahoe, California, Dave Brin has everything well underway at the Barracuda Championship. This is the 20th year of the tournament, and it’s shaping up to be great final round.
Chris Golden’s at the Firestone Country Club near Akron, Ohio, in our new-and-improved Frontline truck. It’s the Bridgestone Invitational, and Chris is providing our friends at Golf Channel with tournament coverage, including an extensive comms package that includes almost a mile of fiber cable. See all the action — and Chris’s hard work — on CBS and Golf Channel throughout the weekend.
We’re back in Minnesota for golf at the 3M Championship at the TPC Twin Cities in Blaine. California-based John Jennings is there in C43 to provide Golf Channel with tourney coverage. This is the 26th and FINAL year of the 3M Championship, and we are happy to be there for the farewell after working the tournament for several years.
Down in Orlando, Florida, Steve Toth and Abisai Falcon are preparing for Monday morning’s early live shot from the Dubsdread Golf Course. It’s the World’s Largest Golf Outing, the single largest charitable golf event held on one day that makes a significant impact in the lives of those who need it most: our nation’s veterans. Steve and Abi will set up on Sunday to be ready early Monday morning for the live shot on Golf Channel’s Morning Drive.
Last, but certainly not least, our golf majors team of Craig Henry, Kevin Spangler and the powerhouse C31 truck have all converged at the Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, Missouri, to begin preparing for what will be a week of extensive transmission services via satellite and fiber at the PGA Championship. Kevin and Craig will split shifts on long days at the course to provide Golf Channel with every possible angle of the big tournament. According to various news reports, vendors at the course anticipate $2 million dollars in hat sales alone, so you know this is going to be one of the biggest golf events of the year.
Believe it or not, we are already coming up on some football, as well. The football season is our busiest time of year, and Joe Cox and Nick Ray are in Canton, Ohio, this weekend to kick it off with gusto. Joe’s over at the Canton Memorial Civic Center, where he will be providing transmission services for NFL Network’s coverage of the Gold Jacket Ceremony. The Hall of Fame Class of 2018 includes Ray Lewis, Terrell Owens and Brian Urlacher, and it’s sure to be a special night for these veterans and football fans around the world.
Just up the road, Nick Ray is setting up C42 for a multiplexed transmission alongside our partners at Alliance Productions for NFL Network’s coverage of the Grand Parade on Saturday morning. This parade is the centerpiece of a weekend’s worth of festivities for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement Festival.
Steve Hagerty’s also going to be in a very festive football atmosphere this weekend. He’s at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for Packers Family Night. This great annual event benefits Wendy’s Wonderful Kids and gives Packers fans — especially the youngest ones — an opportunity to meet and greet their heroes while enjoying a day at Lambeau.
Not too far from Steve, Todd Harvey and John May are setting up two of our big C-band trucks at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wisconsin, for the finals of the CrossFit Games on CBS and CBS Sports. Here the world’s finest athletes are competing in a grueling few days of exercise events to be named the Fittest on Earth. John and Harvey may be inspired to bang out a few pushups of their own to prove their mettle!
We have still more trucks and engineers in the great state of Wisconsin this weekend! Rick Ball and Justin Roszak are at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, to provide tremendously expansive and complex transmission services for NASCAR’s IMSA series. We’re up to 28 multiplexed paths over satellite, along with backup data and phones for the TV compound. Rick and Justin have a lot going on between their two antennas, doing cutting-edge work that no other transmission company could provide.
It wouldn’t be summer without a little Major League Baseball. And what could possibly be more exciting than the Yankees versus the Red Sox at Fenway Park? We’ll tell you: a 4K broadcast! 4K guru Rick Varney is setting up a day early for Saturday afternoon’s big game. He will be providing Fox with the 4K transmission of what is sure to be an exciting afternoon of baseball.
We’re reaching the end of what has been a great run of soccer events as we’ve followed the ICC U.S. soccer tour across the country and back again. This weekend David Meyer’s up at Levi’s Stadium for AC Milan versus Barcelona on Saturday night.
On the other side of the country, Dave Mitchell is back at FedEx Field for Real Madrid versus Juventus. We have a few more games coming up next week, all part of a package of transmission services for our friends at Arqiva, who are handling the international distribution of this tour to rabid football fans worldwide.
Rick Kolinek’s back again (!) at TCF Bank Stadium at the University of Minnesota for another Minnesota United FC MLS game. This time they’re hosting the Seattle Sounders, and yet again our team at PIT will be downlinking Rick’s signal for distribution across the AT&T Global Video network.
Yes, we’re fighting again. It’s a big bout at the Hard Rock in Atlantic City this weekend. There we have engineer in charge (EIC) Paul Blomstrom joining project managers Eric Hall and Victor Verno for the domestic and international distribution of HBO Championship Boxing on Saturday night. Blake Blomstrom, Dennis Smith and Dave Buckman will be handling the redundant origination uplinks, and we’ll also be providing ringside commentary services for international announcers. Sergey Kovalev will be defending his WBO light-heavyweight title against Eleider Alvarez in the main event. We’ll be there for that along with all the undercards and Friday’s weigh-in. It’s great to be back in AC for boxing!
On the other coast, our UFC A-team is gearing up for Saturday night’s UFC 227 pay-per-view, live from the Staples Center in downtown LA. Before that, our guys are setting up an off-site weigh-in up the street at the historic Orpheum Theatre. Tracy Michaels, Jim Flowers and Mike Lemieux join project manager Keith Valeri in the newly painted CK25 mobile teleport. Just when we thought the truck couldn’t get any better — following months of rewiring and upgrades in our Vegas shop — our LA crew took over and buffed, painted, washed, shined and applied new logos and graphics. What an amazing transformation, and what better way to show her off than at a pay-per-view with Concom, one of our top customers and longtime partners on the grueling, year-round UFC tour.
On Saturday Brian Blomstrom, Jose Sanchez, ringside audio engineer Mark Huss, project manager Logan Schinto, and drivers Nathan Holsey and Devon Porter will join Jim, Mike and Keith to set up CK25 AND CK35 (alongside the new-to-PSSI NT25) at the Staples Center for the big show. With both mobile teleports and the best engineering crew in the industry, we have pulled out all the stops for this huge event.
Also for Concom, just up the freeway, Steve Chaisson is setting up his truck at the San Jose State University Tennis Center for the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic. This is another in a series of nationwide ATP tennis events where we’re handling domestic and international distribution for Concom’s productions.
It’s a bit of a relief for Steve to be working a weekend’s worth of tennis, as he spent the first part of his week doing news coverage of the horrible wildfires near Redding, California. Covering fires is dangerous and complicated, as plans can change at a moment’s notice, literally depending on which way the wind blows. PSSI News Group’s Lorenzo Dottori and Todd Anderson are still in the fire zone, working long hours to provide CNN with live reports of the devastation in northern California. These news veterans are giving their all to bring these troubling images to viewers around the world, and we thank them for their tireless efforts.
After he helps the guys set up UFC 227, Tracy Michaels is heading to St. George, Utah, where the 2018 Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah bicycle race will begin early next week. Tracy is once again the tech manager for the entire production, and he’s been preparing for weeks to make this production even better than it’s been in previous years. Like the Tour of California, it’s an incredibly complex setup as the TV compound moves to a new location every day. That includes motorcycles, airplanes and helicopters! Bike racing veteran Wes Hill will be there with K19 to provide the primary transmission path at each stage. It’s going to be a grueling week for our guys, but they wouldn’t have it any other way!
Last, but not least, exciting things are happening in the wilds of Yellowstone National Park. There we have EIC John Bright, project manager Garrett Hunt, and engineers Ray Loyko, Mike Howley, Chris Hovden and Mike Sheehan all preparing for a weeklong adventure as National Geographic broadcasts live from the park on all of their viewing platforms.
John, Garret, Mike and Ray will be based at the TV compound in West Yellowstone — in the middle of a beautiful, open field — while Mike and Chris go roving throughout the park with a small camera crew to capture all of the creatures and natural phenomena in America’s greatest wilderness. We’ve already had a few moose encounters, and there’s no food allowed in any of our crew’s “glamping” accommodations so that the bears don’t get too close. We’re carrying extra fuel and satellite phones on board our trucks as they travel deep into the wilderness where there’s nary a cell phone signal to be found.
It’s a job that’s tailor-made for satellite transmissions, and there’s no other company with the equipment and personnel to pull off a show of this complexity in such challenging conditions. Please tune in next week with the rest of us to enjoy what is sure to be a surprising and exciting live event.