Let’s kick things off here in Los Angeles, where our engineering team has had quite a week!
Wes Hill had a perfect show down at Disney Studios in Burbank, where The Little Mermaid LIVE aired on Tuesday night. Wes then had a “down” day, which he spent at the shop preparing for back-to-back productions for DAZN as we head into the big fight on Saturday between KSI and Logan Paul at the Staples Center. On Thursday, Wes took our K34 production/uplink truck down to TAO in Hollywood and met up with Alex Mestizo, Oscar Zapata, Mark Alston, and project manager Eric Hall to put together a multi-camera press conference. On Friday, this same great team is at LA Live to produce the official weigh-in with our friends at DAZN.
Alex Mestizo will join forces with Mark Huss at the fight on Saturday, where we will be providing ringside commentary services for international broadcasters. He won’t be at Staples in person, but Michael Hollander will coordinate DAZN’s commercial premises feed, which includes a stop at the PSSI International Teleport for captioning services.
But let’s get back to Wes, who continues his busy schedule through the weekend. It’s time for the E! People’s Choice Awards, live from Santa Monica airport’s Barker Hangar on Sunday. Wes is working for our friends at Telemundo to provide a multi-path uplink as well as production comms to the red carpet.
Chris Hovden’s there already, getting all set up for E!’s primary broadcast. Chris will be encoding and multiplexing two separate feeds for fiber distribution to the network. No truck at all, just Chris’s engineering expertise and a stack of high-end compression and monitoring equipment.
John Jennings is also heading to Santa Monica for the weekend, where he will be set up with our Sprinter outside of Home Shopping Network personality Andrew Lessman’s house for a series of live remote inserts. Mark Huss will give John a break for Sunday’s live shots, and John will be back to finish up on Monday night.
We also had two trucks leave LA in two different directions. Earlier in the week, Larry Sheets headed down to Phoenix for Golf Channels coverage of the Charles Schwab Cup Championship, live from the Phoenix Country Club.
Meanwhile, Brian Blomstrom’s on his way to Chukchansi Park in Fresno for more Top Rank Boxing on ESPN. Brian’s there for ESPN, and he will providing a two-service mux for our friends in Bristol, one of which is a 1080p feed.
Next to Brian, Dave Brin will be parking a Ku-band truck for Top Rank’s international distribution of the fight between Jamel Herring and Lamont Roach, as well as all the undercards leading up to the main event. Strategic Television project manager, David Gallardo, will be in the truck with Mr. Brin making phone calls to licensees around the world to ensure that they’re receiving the fight. David’s arranged all of the international turnarounds and uplinks, including a key stop at the PSSI International Teleport.
Let’s just keep trucking up the West Coast, where we find David Meyer at Reser Stadium in Corvallis, OR. Oregon State hosts Washington for a Friday night PAC-12 matchup on Fox Sports 1.
Drifting a bit eastward, Paul Blomstrom’s in Boise for the game between Wyoming and Boise State on Saturday night. Paul will be providing our friends at ESPN headquarters in Connecticut with 10 multiplexed cameras via satellite. ESPN will produce the show in the comfort of their own studio thanks to Paul’s complex transmission. Special thanks to Devon Porter for getting the CK35 mobile teleport into place at Alberton’s Stadium.
Let’s stick with college football for now, because there’s a lot of it to cover!
The SEC on CBS game of the week is in Tuscaloosa, Alabama this Saturday afternoon, and boy is it going to be a game. #1 LSU takes on the #2 Alabama Crimson Tide in what will likely be the game of the year so far. Senior engineer Rick Ball wouldn’t miss this game for the world, and he’s already set up and ready to go for Saturday’s broadcast.
Fox’s 4K game of the week is at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Ft. Worth, TX. There we have 4K guru Rick Varney joined by his friend and colleague, John May, in side-by-side trucks providing Fox with dual UHD transmissions. The TCU Horned Frogs are hosting the red hot Baylor Bears on Saturday, and it’s going to look great on your 4K TV.
John May was just up the road at Grand Prairie’s Verizon Theatre for Thursday night’s Dallas Music Awards, another successful collaboration with our friends at the Switch.
Dallas resident Ron “Roadrunner” Ford is up the road in Norman, OK, where he will be providing Fox’s satellite pathway from the University of Oklahoma. The Sooners host the Iowa State Cyclones on Saturday night, and Ron is raring to go.
A good ways further north, Joe Cox and Rick Kolinek will be at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, WI for the big time Big 10 matchup between the Wisconsin Badgers and the Iowa Hawkeyes on Saturday afternoon. Joe’s handling the C-band transmission for Fox, while Rick’s in a Ku-band truck.
More Big 10: road dog Mike Howley is back at The Ohio State University on Saturday, when the Buckeyes take on the Maryland Terrapins on Saturday afternoon. Mike’s fresh off another flawless WWE NXT Full Sail show down in Florida, where he’s taken up a weekly Wednesday residency for our friends at WWE.
Mike Lemieux is back from last week’s outstanding WWE show from Saudi Arabia, and now in a much more familiar environment: Army’s Michie Stadium in West Point, NY. Army hosts UMASS on Saturday afternoon on CBS Sports Network.
Meanwhile, Blake Blomstrom’s down at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, but this time it’s not another Navy home game. It’s the 2019 Veterans Classic, live from Alumni Hall. Navy, Auburn, Davidson, and East Carolina will square off in this annual tradition, also live on CBS Sports Network.
But wait, still more football. Dave Buckman’s at the University of Cincinnati’s Nippert Stadium, where the Bearcats host the UConn Huskies on Saturday afternoon.
Just up the road from Dave is another Dave: Dave “Mitch” Mitchell is back at WVU in Morgantown for more college hoops on Friday night. Akron’s in town to take on the Mountaineers, live from WVU Coliseum.
Mike Sheehan has a rare weekend off (for now), mostly because he made the long haul to Sioux Falls, SD, where he parked outside Avera Heart Hospital for a live surgery transmission. Fortunately the weather was OK, but soon here we won’t be so lucky when we’re working in South Dakota, Iowa, and Wisconsin.
It’s a relatively light weekend for golf, but Chris Golden had a pretty cool Thursday at The Woods Jupiter, which happens to be Tiger Woods’s restaurant in Jupiter, FL. Chris was there for PGA Tour Entertainment to transmit a live press conference with Tiger Woods himself!
Justin Roszak’s had a busy week down in Florida. Earlier in the week, Justin worked with DAZN’s production team over in Tampa for yet another installment of the Pat McAfee show. This weekend Justin will head up to Jacksonville for our friends at ESPN, as the US Men’s National team takes on Costa Rica on Sunday night, live from TIAA Bank Field.
And how about a little politics? Steve Toth is working with our new friends at Democracy Now! for the news organization’s live coverage of the Presidential Forum at South Carolina State University. South Carolina is one of the key states in the upcoming election, so Steve’s Charleston-based truck will see plenty of action for sure!
Iowa’s another key state, of course, and our News Group team is headed there for CNN this weekend. Bill O’Toole will meet up with Steve Mills at Grinnell College to cover some Democratic candidates as they stump in advance of the Iowa caucus in January.
It’s the penultimate race of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, and it’s going to be a good one. Jonathan Ayala and Ben Bradshaw are in the C27 mobile teleport all week at ISM Raceway in Phoenix, providing our friends at NASCAR with extensive transmission and data services via satellite and AT&T Global Video Services fiber. It’s the elimination race on Sunday, which will set the stage for the next weekend’s Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. It’s been a great season for our NASCAR team, and we’re excited to be in the home stretch!
Let’s finish up with a few big international shows, challenging live events that only PSSI Global Services/Strategic Television can handle. Jose Sanchez is making a long drive from Guadalajara to Playa del Carmen Quintano, Mexico, where he will meet up with Kevin Spangler and our friends from Telecomm for another Mayakoba Golf Classic. We love doing this event for our friends at Golf Channel, and it’s already great to utilize our own Mexico-based resources to complement Telecomm’s setup.
A little bit further away, Logan Schinto and Zane Michaels continue their jet-setting with the WWE crew. Zane and Logan are in Manchester, UK for a special international edition of Friday Night SmackDown. Why not stop in England on the way home from Saudi Arabia? Our team on the ground is doing great, and WWE fans around the world will see all the action from the UK thanks to their efforts, as well as those closer to home at the PSSI International Teleport.
And let’s keep going around the world to Moscow, where UFC veterans Keith Valeri and Tracy Michaels are working with our new friends at TV Start Russia to distribute UFC on ESPN+. After a helluva flight, Keith and Tracy are ready to roll at the CSKA Arena, where Zabit Magomedsharipov will take on Calvin Kattar and Alexander Volkov faces Greg Hardy in the co-main events. Our guys will make sure every bit of UFC content makes its way to fans around the world with – you guessed it – PSSI International Teleport figuring prominently in this worldwide distribution. Great job, guys, and safe travels home!