What a week! We’ve got plenty of golf, hockey, basketball, fights, NASCAR and more on the schedule.
In the world of golf, Mike Howley and Mati Kerpen were at Atlantic City Country Club in Northfield, New Jersey, with C42 earlier this week for the third televised World Long Drive event, including the inaugural Boardwalk Bash.
Then Mike and C42 headed over to the Stockton Seaview Golf Club in Galloway, New Jersey, for the ShopRite LPGA Classic, presented by Acer. This three-day, 54-hole women’s event brings together 144 golfers to compete for a total purse of $1.75 million, with $262,500 of that going to the winner. Not bad for three days of work!
Mike Sheehan was at the Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, Missouri, with C41 on Monday for Golf Channel’s “Morning Drive.” Then Mike swapped trucks for the C47 and headed to Wakonda Country Club in Des Moines, Iowa, for the 2018 Principal Charity Classic, presented by Wells Fargo.
Chris Golden and C43 are in Ivanhoe, Illinois, this week at the Ivanhoe Club, one of the most prestigious golf clubs in the area, for the Rust-Oleum Championship.
We have quite a crew of our top guys converging on the Hamptons to prepare for next week’s start of the 118th U.S. Open. This is a huge show for Golf Channel and Fox, and we are pulling out all the stops. Craig Henry and Kevin Spangler arrived at Shinnecock Hills Golf Course in Southampton, New York, today with C31, which will be the hub of an extraordinary amount of inbound and outbound feeds via both fiber and satellite. The guys will rotate shifts for near-round-the-clock coverage for Golf Channel.
4K guru Rick Varney will also be there for Fox’s 4K coverage of this historic event. Senior engineer Rick Ball will join Mr. Varney to help set up C41 for a week’s worth of beautiful images from the course. With big names such as Jordan Spieth, Tiger Woods and defending champion Brooks Koepka, it promises to be an event for the books. Stay tuned next week for more updates on the U.S. Open!
Of course we have plenty of fights this weekend, as well.
Steve Hagerty and K18 will be at Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York, on Friday for Golden Boy on ESPN. The main event features Diego De La Hoya defending his NABF and NABO super bantamweight titles against Jose “Sugar” Salgado, and the co-main event will be Travell “Black Magic” Mazion against Daquan Pauldo. Steve’s got a three-channel mux coming out of K18’s antenna, with dedicated paths to ESPN, ESPN Deportes and international boxing fans around the world.
Zane Michaels was back with CK30 this week at Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, for WWE Raw on Monday. Highlights of the evening included Elias and Jinder Mahal defeating Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins, the B-Team winning a Tag Team Battle Royal, Nia Jax defeating Natalya and Braun Strowman beating Bobby Roode.
Then Zane and CK30 continued to the American Bank Center in Corpus Christi on Tuesday for WWE SmackDown. Highlights from the evening include Karl Anderson defeating Harper; Aiden English and Lana being defeated by Naomi and Jimmy Uso; Becky Lynch defeating Charlotte Flair; The New Day defeating The Miz, Rusev and Samoa Joe; and Asuka defeating Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville. Next week they head to Little Rock, Arkansas, for WWE Raw and Memphis, Tennessee, for WWE SmackDown.
We’ve got yet another fight on the schedule right here in LA on Saturday night. Wes Hill and Larry Sheets will join project managers Michael Hollander and Victor Verno at the Staples Center for Showtime boxing. Featherweight world champions Leo “El Terremoto” Santa Cruz and Abner Mares meet in the ring for a long awaited rematch. Also on the fight card: Jermell Charlo defending his WBC light middleweight title against Austin Trout. Victor and Larry will handle the domestic show, while Michael and Wes will be providing the origination feed for boxing fans around the world.
There’s a big ol’ fight in Las Vegas, Nevada, this weekend at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. It’s Crawford vs. Horn, live on Saturday night, and we have quite a group of trucks, engineers and project managers to help make it a great show. John Bright and Nathan Holsey are setting up our K34 production/transmission hybrid to provide Fox Sports Australia with a unilateral production of the fight. They’ll be watching Australia native Jeff Horn take on Terence Crawford to see if his recent defeat of Manny Pacquiao makes him the real deal. Pretty close by in the TV compound we have Brian Blomstrom, Rick Ball, Joe Cox and project manager David Gallardo setting up CK35 and C36 for ESPN’s broadcast of the fight as well as the international distribution. It’s gonna be a great night in Vegas!
We’ve got another all-star team at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, this weekend for UFC 225. Rick Kolinek, Jim Flowers, Mike Lemieux and engineer in charge (EIC) Tracy Michaels are there with project manager Garrett Hunt to provide extensive transmission and disaster recovery services for our friends at Concom, IMG and UFC. This is the first major event for our newly overhauled CK25 mobile teleport. Our teams in LA and Vegas have made this truck — which was already one of the best in the business — into an absolute transmission powerhouse.
In hockey news, what a great run it was for the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Ray Loyko was on hand last night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for Game 5 of the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs.
We’re also watching the NBA Finals closely. If the series goes to a Game 5, Paul Blomstrom is at the ready in Oakland to provide NBA TV with extensive production and transmission services for all the press conferences, player interviews and game coverage. If the Warriors make it a sweep, our shipping and logistics teams will arrange for the laser-quick extraction of our truck and gear from the Oracle Arena. We’re always prepared for every contingency!
We’ve also got some racing on the schedule this week.
Ben Bradshaw and Jonathan Ayala are at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan, with C27 truck for this week’s NASCAR races. The weekend starts on Friday with both Cup and Xfinity Series practices. Then on Saturday it’s the NASCAR Xfinity Series LTi Printing 250, and on Sunday it’s the big Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series FireKeepers Casino 400.
John May and Justin Roszak are at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas, for more NASCAR. The action-packed weekend includes the Outdoor Powersports Offroad Ruckus and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series PPG 400 on Friday, and the SPEED Energy Stadium Super Truck Series No Limits Offroad Rumble and the Verizon IndyCar Series DXC Technology 600 on Saturday.
But it’s not all fighting and sports for us. John Jennings is wearing his PSSI Global Services finest at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center on Friday evening to cover the highly anticipated Moschino Spring/Summer Menswear 2019 and Women’s Resort Collection Fashion Show. We’re hoping he brings some free samples back to the office!
Then on Sunday John Jennings will take K19 to the Orpheum Theatre and Mark Huss will have the LA Sprinter at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, as we provide extensive coverage of the 2018 Electronic Entertainment Expo, commonly referred to as E3. E3 is said to be the world’s premier event for computer and video games and accessories, where new products are revealed, new companies are introduced and new technology is showcased.
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