Another busy week for PSSI Global Services as the weather gets colder.
We kick off our list of events with Dennis Smith at Hughes Stadium on Saturday in Baltimore, Maryland where the Morgan State Bears defend their home territory against the Savannah State Tigers. Both teams are having a tough season so far with each having a 0-5 record. At least somebody’s going to get that W!
Saturday evening at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, it’s a Premier Boxing Champions triple header, thanks to Mati Kerpen and the Junior truck. First up, former world champion Austin “No Doubt” Trout will be the first ever to challenge IBF Junior middleweight champion “Swift” Jarrett Hurd, since Hurd won his title. Then WBA super welterweight world champion Erislandy “The American Dream” Lara defends his title for the sixth time against undefeated contender Terrell Gausha. The co-feature bout will be WBC super welterweight champion Jermell “Iron Man” Charlo will defend his title against his fellow undefeated contender Erickson “Hammer” Lubin. Mati will be monitoring a fiber feed that is the origination for international viewers around the world, and he will also provide encoding services for Showtime.
K18 and Steve Hagerty are heading south to Louisville, Kentucky for NCAA Women’s Volleyball. This week’s matchup is the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets taking on the Louisville Cardinals.
Just down the road at what is fondly thought of as “The Wildest Track in NASCAR,” we have Benny Griffis, Andy Kehn and Kyle Meyer setting up several antennas for the NASCAR action this weekend. Talladega Superspeedway is going to be humming with multiple races, culminating with the Alabama 500 on Sunday.
Meanwhile, back in football, Dave Mitchell is on more high school football, this week in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. Here the Beaver Falls Tigers will defend their home turf against the Central Valley Warriors on Friday night. Last year the Tigers took the win over Central Valley, let’s see if they can repeat that victory!
And down the turnpike in West Chester, Pennsylvania on Saturday, live from Danny Hale Field, Dave Buckman will be on hand for the Bloomsburg University Huskies versus the West Chester University Golden Rams. Another great weekend in Pennsylvania for sports!
The CBS SEC Game of the Week is at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge this Saturday, and lord knows Rick Ball is there to do the uplink. Rick is there with the same crew week in and week out for the 3:30 ET game on CBS, the highest profile college football game of the week. Let’s see which Tigers — Auburn or LSU — come out of Death Valley with a victory!
More SEC action for us in Athens, Georgia, where Justin Roszak is setting up to provide transmission services for SEC Nation, live from the University of Georgia. Every SEC fan in the country will be watching this show before the games kick off on Saturday.
Blake Blomstrom takes the C41 truck to Maryland Stadium (formerly Byrd Stadium) at the University of Maryland for the game Saturday, when the Terps host Northwestern. Blake is doing yet another at-home transmission for ESPN. This time it is 10 multiplexed signals over satellite back to Connecticut for the ESPN crew to produce the show.
The seats at Boone Pickens Stadium in Stillwater, Oklahoma will be full on Saturday as the Oklahoma State Cowboys take on the Baylor Bears. Rick Varney and John May are already there setting up for Fox’s 4K/UHD and HD broadcasts. Our team at the PSSI International Teleport in Pittsburgh is also getting ready with our brand new 4K/UHD quality control monitoring stations.
Up the road at Bill Snyder Family Football Stadium in Manhattan, Kansas, we have Ron Ford in K26 and John Jennings in C43 on-site to cover the Kansas State Wildcats game against the TCU Horned Frogs. TCU sits at the top of their conference and sixth overall in the league, making them a hard team to beat. John and Ron will be getting up mighty early on Saturday to get their trucks up and running for the noon kickoff.
Rick Kolinek will also be in the area, but he’s on an NFL assignment. Pittsburgh CBS affiliate KDKA has Rick at Arrowhead Stadium for post-game interviews after the Steelers take on the Kansas City Chiefs.
Back East at Michie Stadium in West Point, the Eastern Michigan Eagles face the Army’s Black Knights. We’re proud to be the transmission vendor of choice for CBS SportsNet’s broadcasts of all home Army and Navy games. Mike Howley will be there yet again for us to provide the uplink on Saturday.
Marty Smitherman’s spending the weekend in North Carolina. Friday night it’s NCAA men’s soccer, as N.C. State hosts Virginia. Sunday it’s women’s soccer over in Durham, as Duke hosts Miami.
Our News Group engineers are hard at work covering the terrible fires in Northern California. Steve Mills, Todd Anderson, David Conwell and Michael Humphrey have been rotating shifts and staying safe while delivering these harrowing images and stories to viewers around the clock.
They can smell the smoke down in Berkeley and Stanford, but as of now the football games are still going to be played. Steve Chaisson is at California Memorial Stadium in Berkeley for Friday night’s game, and Dave Brin will be in Palo Alto on Saturday, when the Cardinals host the Oregon Ducks, a late game that rounds out another busy week of college football.
Antioch-based engineer Dave Feustel is down at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for the Mazda Raceway California 8 Hours. Hopefully these games and races will be a welcome distraction for our friends in Northern California as the fires continue to burn.
Can you believe it’s already time for the NBA? Pro basketball on the Turner networks begins this week. On Saturday, Todd Harvey is in Houston at the Toyota Center, where the San Antonio Spurs will take on the Houston Rockets. Next weekend’s game for Turner is in Sacramento.
It’s also hard to believe there’s only one golf tournament this week! Craig Henry is at Prestonwood Country Club in Cary, North Carolina for the SAS Championship Tournament. This year’s tournament, featuring world-class golfers over 50 and a purse of 2.1 million dollars, promises to be an event not to miss. Craig will take CK25 up to Richmond, Virginia for the Dominion Charity Classic next week.
Big fight in Indio, California, on another installment of Golden Boy Promotions on ESPN. Brian Blomstrom is setting up a three-channel mux to provide feeds for ESPN, ESPN Deportes and international takers around the world.
Here in Hollywood we are getting ready for the “One Voice: Somos Live!” telethon at Universal Studios. Larry Sheets is setting up his C-band truck for Friday’s testing in preparation for Saturday night’s broadcast. This benefit will be simulcast on NBC, Telemundo and Univision.
Proceeds will benefit a half-dozen aid organizations, including the United Way, UNICEF, Habitat for Humanity, Feeding America, Save the Children and Unidos for Puerto Rico. The aim is to help victims of recent natural disasters in the Southwestern United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico and the Caribbean.