It’s another exciting week full of live events for PSSI Global Services. Here’s a look at what we’re up to.
For starters, lots of tennis!
Craig Henry’s got the C42 truck at the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, RI this weekend. It’s the 2019 Dell Technologies Hall of Fame Open, the only professional tournament played on grass in North America.
Earlier in the week, Ron Ford made his way up to Mediacom Stadium’s Cooper Tennis Complex for some World Team Tennis action, a series of events we’re doing across the United States.
Dennis Smith was at Kastles Stadium at Union Market in Washington, DC for Monday’s matches between Las Vegas and Washington.
Mike Howley was at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, FL for Thursday’s WTT match between Philadelphia and Orlando.
Out West, John Jennings has back-to-back tennis on his schedule at some pretty ritzy digs. On Friday John’s at the Omni La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, CA for WTT. Then he heads up the coast to Breakers Stadium at the Palisades Tennis Club in Newport Beach, CA where Orange County hosts San Diego.
Then on Sunday, Steve Chaisson will be at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, NV for still more WTT, as Las Vegas hosts Philadelphia.
Dave Buckman continues the tennis action back at Kastles Stadium on Monday in DC, when Las Vegas comes to town.
Everybody (and their brother) will be working into the wee hours for the big Fox pay-per-view on Saturday night at the MGM Garden Arena. While Manny Pacquiao taking on Keith Thurman is the big draw, it’s a veritable who’s who of PSSI/Strategic Television’s top engineers and project managers. Paul Blomstrom has taken on EIC duties for the entire event, which began on Tuesday of this week (not to mention the months of planning leading up to this week). We have the CK35 mobile teleport rocking and rolling as the TV compound’s transmission hub, with Paul’s brother, Brian, and out-of-town ringer Mike Lemieux handling multiple inbound and outbound feeds via fiber and satellite. Joe Cox and Larry Sheets are in Ku-band trucks providing secondary and unilateral feeds for Fox and ESPN, while Matt Huennekens will come in on Saturday to provide a unilateral feed for international distribution.
Project manager Victor Verno has ensured that Fox and multiple domestic takers have all of the transmission and encryption information they need. Jason Land and Michael Hollander are also in town to provide support for international licensees and the unilateral productions. Audio guru Mark Huss is there, as well, providing ringside commentary services for multiple international broadcasters, and earlier in the week he handled audio duty for a satellite media tour with Manny Pacquiao himself! Last, but never least, the PSSI International Teleport is managing multiple QC and international turnarounds for the big event. What a team effort from all of our guys! This is truly an event that only PSSI/Strategic Television could handle from tips to tails.
Still more boxing, which remains our bread and butter.
John Bright’s at MGM National Harbor Casino in Maryland for Friday night’s Top Rank on ESPN boxing event. John’s in the CK25 mobile teleport providing a 4ch mux to our friends at ESPN with multiple versions of the fight, including the international feed of the undercards and main event, which features Teofimo Lopez versus Masayoshi Nakatani.
We had more Golden Boy boxing on Thursday night, as Chris Hovden was back at Fantasy Springs in Indio, CA to provide the origination feed for the international distribution of Quigley versus Johnson. The team at PIT received Chris’s feed for streaming and international delivery to Europe and Latin America.
More international transmission services from a truck to PIT to Europe. Rick Varney and Dave Mitchell are parked outside Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, IN providing two origination paths on Eutelsat 113 West A of the big match between Liverpool and Dortmund on Friday. We are pleased to announce that we have a full-time fiber connection from PIT to GTT London, with the capability to cross-connect with multiple headends in Europe. This is one of several shows for which we’re providing trans-Atlantic transmission services via this full time circuit. Exciting stuff!
Another relatively new service in our repertoire is technical management on large live productions. Tracy Michaels is once again working as Tech Manager for our friends at Concom this weekend, this time at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, TX. It’s another UFC on ESPN+, and EIC Jim Flowers is joining forces with John May and project manager Garrett Hunt in the CK48 mobile teleport to provide multiple transmission pathways for all the UFC action from Texas.
Let’s take a quick break from sports and mention Steve Hagerty’s exciting night with 2 Chainz on Thursday in Toronto.
This is one of a few uplinks we’re doing for the VIMEO Bud Light Backyard Concert Series, which you can stream online. Steve was literally parked in somebody’s backyard for the big show!
And Wes Hill is back at Comicon in San Diego, CA this week, where he will be handling the transmission for Conan O’Brien’s live shows from the huge convention. Wes is there every year, and requested by name by all his friends down at the Spreckles Theatre.
Also in the “other” category, we had a couple of successful live surgeries on our schedule this week. Steve Toth was at the Greenville Medical Hospital in Greenville, SC, while Mati Kerpen at the NT22 at Yale New Haven Hospital for some cutting edge surgical demonstrations. Not for the faint of heart!
More summer hoops this weekend, as well, as the Big3 basketball tour continues in the middle of the country. Todd Harvey’s at the Sprint Center for Saturday night’s lineup. Driver Devon Porter will hustle the C21 down to Ron Ford, who will be standing by at the Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City for Sunday’s broadcast.
And David Meyer’s back at Alaska Airlines Arena in Seattle, WA for more Seattle Storm WNBA hoops. The Storm host the Las Vegas Aces on Friday night.
It wouldn’t be summer without golf and racing.
Chris Golden is finishing up back-to-back weeks of golf coverage in the blazing heat of the Midwest. He’s at Midland Country Club in northern Michigan for the Dow Great Lakes Tournament, which wraps on Saturday if the weather holds.
Meanwhile, Kevin Spangler’s at the Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville, KY for Golf Channel’s coverage of the Barbasol Championship, with the final round on Sunday.
And we are racing, as usual. Rick Ball’s at the helm of the C12 at Lime Rock Park for the 2019 IMSA Northeast Grand Prix. Rick’s not much on simple transmissions, so he’s got 28 video paths coming out of C12’s antenna, plus some data for phones and comms at the track. PIT’s taking in his feed and handing it off to NASCAR headquarters in Charlotte via AT&T Global Video Services fiber. Meanwhile, Justin Roszak is on hot standby at Daytona International Speedway, ready to take in Rick’s feed and hand it off to AT&T in case of emergency.
New Hampshire native Nick Ray got some time on the C27 mobile teleport this week alongside Ben Bradshaw and Kyle Meyer. They’ve been at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon all week long providing fiber and satellite transmissions along with a gig of internet to NASCAR Productions. The week culminates in the NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series Foxwoods Resort Casino 301 on Sunday. It’s hot and humid, but hopefully the thunderstorms will hold off for the big race.
Just another week at PSSI Global Services, the World’s Transmission Experts!