We’re having a lot of fun in the great state of California this week!
Let’s start up in Pebble Beach, where Craig Henry and Wes Hill have been tag-teaming long days for over a week to handle Golf Channel’s coverage of the 2019 US Open. The weather’s been pretty nice for our guys and the golfers, and there’s a lot of golf left to play this weekend. PSSI News Group’s Todd Anderson is also on hand at Pebble Beach for CNN’s coverage of this PGA Major.
Keeping up north, we were also on hand for the last game of the NBA Finals, where the Toronto Raptors closed out the series against the Warriors at Oracle Arena. Project manager Dan Patin joined up with Paul Blomstrom to provide extensive production and transmission services for our friends at NBA TV. All the press conferences and interviews you saw were running through our Atlas truck, which hustled right back down to Los Angeles overnight to get ready for more work in Southern California.
Our engineers in the shop are de-rigging the production gear out of the Atlas on Friday to get ready for the Disney Radio Awards this weekend, live from CBS Studios in Studio City. John Jennings and project manager Eric Hall will be testing on Saturday for Sunday’s ARDY awards, which will be televised live for the first time ever. We’re happy to be a part of the show!
Before all the Disney action, John Jennings worked the Golden Boy Fight Night live from the Avalon in Hollywood on Thursday, providing the origination feed for the undercards leading up to the main event between Seniesa Estrada and Gretchen Abaniel.
Another big first on our schedule: the Fortnite Summer Block Party, live at the Fabulous Forum all weekend. Project manager Garrett Hunt and senior engineer Tracy Michaels have been working closely with our friends at IMG and Cingularity to develop an 1080p via IP transmission scheme for this huge gaming event. Engineer Larry Sheets has turned our LA Sprinter into and IP distribution hub for international delivery. PSSI Global Services understands that e-sports and gaming are the next frontier in live event, and we are poised to provide cutting edge transmission solutions for our customers who work outside traditional broadcast models. This weekend’s a great opportunity for us to flex these muscles, and we thank Cingularity and IMG for including us on the event!
Driver extraordinaire Joe Kelderhouse brought the CK30 mobile teleport down to our shop after successful WWE shows in San Jose and Sacramento this past week. Our team is touching up some paint on the trailer, doing some preventative maintenance on the HVAC and power systems, and otherwise taking advantage of a rare lull in the non-stop WWE schedule. Joe’s picking up the truck again this weekend to meet up with engineer Zane Michaels for Monday night RAW at the Staples Center and Tuesday Night Smackdown at the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, CA before heading up to Tacoma, WA for next weekend’s pay-per-view. Big thanks to our LA maintenance crew for jumping all over the opportunity!
As if that weren’t enough, there’s plenty of action going on beyond California this weekend.
Huge fight in Las Vegas this weekend, where Tyson Fury will face Tom Schwartz at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Saturday night. We have a fleet of trucks and great group of top engineers to service multiple clients for this Top Rank on ESPN event. Let’s start with the CK35 mobile teleport, with Brian Blomstrom at the helm. Brian’s providing a multiplexed transmission for ESPN’s various feeds out of the C-band antenna, and handing off backup feeds to a separate Ku-band truck that will be handled by Matt Huennekens. Brian’s brother Paul, fresh off the NBA Finals, will transmit two international pathways for Top Rank out of CK35’s Ku-band antenna, with the PSSI International Teleport receiving and turning the signals around for distribution to Europe and Latin America.
We also have the K34 production truck on site for a unilateral production for a German customer. EIC John Bright and K34B manager Alex Mestizo have their hands full in the Vegas heat as they oversee this multi-camera production that will be distributed via fiber. Senior project manager David Gallardo is there to ensure that all customers receive the highest level of service, and that international licensees around the world catch all of the undercards and the main event on Saturday night.
More fighting out east, where new Florida resident Mike Howley is at the helm of the newly upgraded NT33 truck at the Pensacola Bay Center. It’s a jiu-jitsu superfight that will culminate in a bout between Jorge Masvidal and Anthony Pettis. The PSSI International Teleport will take in Mike’s signal and encode to multiple streaming platforms. Our streaming capabilities at PIT have grown exponentially to meet increasing demand from our customers. We can do it all!
It’s an off week for the C27 mobile teleport as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series takes a break before Sonoma next week. But there’s still plenty of racing on our schedules!
Rick Ball’s at the Bristol Dragway for the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals this weekend. This action-packed Father’s Day weekend event includes Mountain Motor Pro Stock, Top Fuel Harleys and Pro Mods as well as Nitro Top Fuel and Funny Cars. Rick’s providing the NHRA production team with extensive data and video services via AT&T Global Video Services fiber. He’s got the truck’s antenna pointed at Eutelsat 113WA just in case, but Rick’s looking forward to a flawless weekend of racing action.
The CK48 mobile teleport is in Newton, IA this weekend for the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series and the Xfinity Series Iowa 250. John May and Justin Roszak are running a Media Links shelf out of the truck for data and video transport with a satellite backup. From there the truck heads to Gateway outside St. Louis for more racing next weekend.
The US Open isn’t the only golf happening this weekend. Joe Cox and the Frontline truck are at the Blythefield Country Club in in Belmont, MI this week for the Meijer LPGA Tournament Classic with a prize pool of $2 million.
And down in his hometown of Charleston, SC, engineer Steve Toth will be set up at the Charleston Music Hall on Saturday for BET’s Black Economic Alliance 2020 Presidential Forum, which will feature candidates Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and Beto O’Rourke discussing economic priorities for black Americans.
Project manager Michael Hollander is working with the PSSI International Teleport to provide a commercial premises feed for DAZN’s coverage of Bellator 222. Michael booked a circuit out of Madison Square Garden to PIT, where our Events team will add captioning before putting the feed out via satellite to bars and restaurants around the country. No trucks at all involved in this show, but we’re still a critical part of this big event’s distribution.
We are the Global Experts in Events, Transmission & Connectivity, and we hope you all enjoy the fruits of our labor on your screens this weekend!