We’re coming up on another busy weekend full of sports, but we want to start by recognizing our team braving the elements in the Carolinas as Hurricane Florence makes landfall ever so slowly.
PSSI News Group has had a strong contingent on the coast since early in the week. Scott Garber, Bill O’Toole, Steve Mills, Chris Stewart, Lorenzo Dottori, Michael Humphrey, Al Meshberg and Charlie Neiswenter have been providing round-the-clock coverage of the hurricane for CNN. PSSI Global Services’ Ben Bradshaw and Benny Griffis are also on hand for ABC’s coverage of what is shaping up to be a devastating storm for hundreds of thousands of residents. This may be the strongest, most experienced collection of uplink engineers we’ve ever had, and our sincerest appreciation and thanks go to these 10 guys for their bravery, endurance and impeccable engineering. Be safe!
Earlier in the week we found ourselves at The Anthem in Washington, D.C., for a very special event. Project manager Garrett Hunt joined forces with senior engineers Jim Flowers and Craig Henry in the CK25 mobile teleport for the World’s Biggest USO Tour.
The CK25 was the broadcast hub for the event, ingesting remote productions from USO Yokosuka in Japan, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska and USO Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, and delivering the show in D.C. to these locations and USOs around the world. Garrett arranged the productions and transmission routings for each remote location, which was no small task across multiple time zones and language barriers. We also worked closely with Nextologies to provide IP-based backup transmissions from each location. Nextologies CEO Sasha Zivanovic was in the truck himself to oversee what was ultimately a perfect show via both satellite and IP. Soldiers around the world enjoyed all the festivities, which culminated in a live concert by Florida Georgia Line. Great job by our team around the world pulling off this great event.
As you can see, it was a busy week well before we got to the weekend!
Mike Howley’s been on the clock since early this week in Grand Blanc, Michigan, at the Warwick Hills Golf Club. It’s the Ally Challenge, a wild pro-am tournament with John Daly getting a lot of air time out of Mike’s antenna.
Steve Chaisson and C47 are a long way down the road at Hillcrest Country Club in Boise, Idaho, this week for the Albertsons Boise Open. England’s Brett Drewitt currently has a commanding lead, but it’s always anybody’s tournament going into the weekend.
If the weather holds in the mid-Atlantic, Dave Buckman will be back at Audi Field in Washington, D.C. for more D.C. United soccer. The New York Red Bulls are in town on Sunday, and it’s the same routine for Dave as it was on Wednesday when Minnesota United FC was in town: a Ku-band uplink from the Columbia truck that our team at the PSSI International Teleport takes down and hands off to the AT&T Global Video Services network.
Speaking of AT&T Global Video Services, we’ve got multiple fiber inbounds and outbounds in the C27 mobile teleport at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway this week. Kyle Meyer and Jonathan Ayala are in town to manage NASCAR’s multiple fiber and satellite paths at the big race. Earlier in the week, Kyle went over to the South Point Hotel, Casino and Spa to handle transmission for a satellite media tour with NASCAR stars for NBC affiliates around the world. John Jennings was there, too, doing more or less the same thing for our friends at Fox.
Kyle’s doing still more multitasking in Sin City this weekend. He spent a couple of hours with driver Dale Fountain at T-Mobile Arena setting up our beautiful Production/Uplink Bus as our team prepares for the Canelo versus GGG rematch on Saturday night. We’re showing off everything the bus can do for our friends at Golden Boy Promotions, HBO and several other entities involved with this huge event. The bus can pretty much do it all — it’s a great place to watch the fight, with plenty of workspace and monitoring. We can do live stand-ups, multi-camera productions, and the expanded encoding and transmission services the rest of our fleet can do! Besides that, it’s a moving billboard! We can wrap the bus with logos and promotional materials at a moment’s notice.
As you might imagine, we’ve got more than the bus in Vegas for the rematch. We’ve had a full week of press conferences, SMTs, ancillary fights and all kinds of boxing action that will culminate in the main event on Saturday night. Engineer in Charge (EIC) Paul Blomstrom and his team of engineers will be testing their various signals all day Friday. Joe Cox is on C14. Ray Loyko is in the Midwest. Senior engineer Mike Lemieux is in K33 providing multiple paths for international customers. Paul and Brian Blomstrom are in the CK35 mobile teleport, which will provide domestic and international paths, and will also serve as the operations hub for our small army of project managers.
David Gallardo is there to oversee the HBO pay-per-view (PPV), which has multiple, redundant paths to ensure that boxing fans in the U.S. get everything they pay for. Michael Hollander and Garrett Hunt are co-managing the international distribution to over 40 licensees around the world. All three guys have also arranged for phones and internet for the entire compound, including the ringside broadcasters, for whom Mark Huss is setting up audio equipment for unilateral productions of the fight. And Jason Land, Vice President of Special Projects, is there to provide support to our entire team and ensure that our customers receive the absolute finest service in the industry.
Earlier in the week, Ray Loyko, Mark Huss and Matt Huennekens handled transmission and production services for a series of promotional events for Golden Boy at the MGM Grand. Project manager Michael Hollander was there, too, to make sure that the complicated cable runs, multiple satellite windows and continually evolving production needs were met with ease.
On Friday, Golden Boy announced that they are getting into the world of MMA, as they promote Liddell versus Ortiz 3, live at The Forum in Inglewood, California, in late November. You can bet that PSSI Global Services will be there in full force for this event, as well!
Just up the Strip at the Paris hotel, K34 veterans John Bright and Nathan Holsey — with a little help from our friend Mark Alston — are providing ESPN with extensive production and transmission services for multiple shows, live from their sets at Beer Park. These guys will have earned a cold one after long days in the Vegas heat. Special shout-out to our LA shop crew for making the AC units in the K34 so cold that the crew has to wear jackets. Every job is a team effort!
We also squeezed in another fight on Thursday night at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. It was Golden Boy on ESPN, and Brian Blomstrom handled our standard three-channel multiplexed transmission for ESPN, ESPN Deportes and international licensees with ease. PSSI International Teleport handled the distribution to Latin American audiences, and they will also be a central part of Saturday’s PPV.
What a week in Vegas!
Then we have yet another three-channel mux up in Fresno, California, on Friday night. Wes Hill is all set up at the Save Mart Center. It’s Ramirez versus Orozco in the main event, which will be broadcast domestically, in Latin America and around the world.
It’s been a busy week for Wes, too. In the wee hours Thursday morning, Wes, Mike Lemieux and Alex Mestizo found themselves in the middle of a vineyard, surrounded by black widow spiders. It wasn’t a nightmare — it was a satellite media tour for California table grapes. PSSI Global Services provided the production and transmission services for a series of interviews with grape growers in this beautiful setting. The black widows were welcome guests: organic alternatives to pesticides. Learn something new every day!
We have yet another SMT going on at the time of this writing. Chris Hovden and Eric Storlie are down at L.A. Live, outside the Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles, for Turner Latin America’s coverage of all the pre-Emmys activities at the red carpet. Chris will be there for the main Emmys broadcast on Monday night, with a couple of days of setup over the weekend. Michael Hollander books it back from Vegas after the fight to join Chris as we spend another year providing the international transmission services for the biggest night in television.
John Jennings will also be on hand in the wee hours to provide some pre-event transmission services for Telemundo’s coverage of the event. It is truly a worldwide phenomenon, and we are proud to be well-represented at the origination point.
Still more monster shows…
Nick Ray, Zane Michaels, Joe Kelderhouse and project manager Logan Schinto are converging in San Antonio, Texas, this weekend to prepare for Sunday night’s WWE Hell in a Cell PPV. We have all of our A-team there as well as in Pittsburgh at PSSI International Teleport for multiple domestic and international paths, both inbound and outbound, from the CK30’s mighty antennas. From the AT&T Center in San Antonio, the team heads to Dallas for Monday Night Raw and then to Tulsa for Tuesday’s SmackDown show.
Meanwhile, halfway around the world, UFC veterans Tracy Michaels and Keith Valeri are in Moscow for UFC Fight Night, live on Saturday night (morning on our west coast) from Olympic Stadium. Our guys have taken a few minutes to do some sightseeing, but much of the days are devoted to working with our partners at TV Start and Concom. TV Start will be providing the origination transmission for the event, while Keith and Tracy ensure that the signal is delivered to teleports and, eventually, to TV screens around the world.
All that, and we haven’t even mentioned football! We’ve got a few games…
College football heats up again this week on a big Saturday:
- Steve Hagerty and K18 will head to Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania, when the Bloomsburg Huskies take on the Mercyhurst Lakers.
- Blake Blomstrom and C24 will be at Beaver Stadium at Penn State University in University Park, Pennsylvania, when Kent State visits Penn State.
- Craig Henry and CK25 will be at Navy-Marine Corps Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland, when Lehigh takes on Navy.
- Rick Ball and CK36 will be at Jordan-Hare Stadium at Auburn University in Alabama for the SEC on CBS game of the week. Should be a great one as the LSU Tigers are in town.
- Jim Flowers and C41 will be at Mitchie Stadium in West Point, New York, when Hawaii takes on Army.
- John May and Nick Ray with CK48 will be at Skelly Field at H.A. Chapman Stadium in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This is our second at-home transmission for our friends at CBS Sports Network, who continue to work with us to push the envelope technologically. Our team at PSSI International Teleport will take in the massive feed from Tulsa to hand off to the AT&T Global Video Services network for fiber delivery to CBS headquarters in New York City, where the game will be produced. Exciting stuff!
- Kevin Spangler and C49 will be at McLane Stadium at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where Duke’s in town to take on Baylor.
- Dave Brin and the Frontline truck will be at Jones AT&T Stadium at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas, when Houston faces Texas Tech. Dave heads up to South Dakota from there for a little golf action next week.
- John Poss with K17 and Mike Sheehan with C43 will be at Darrell K Royal Stadium in Austin, Texas, for USC at Texas, live on Fox Saturday.
- Ron Ford and K26 will be at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, for the Big Ten Network’s coverage of Ohio State’s visit to TCU.
- Rick Varney with the Atlas truck and Larry Sheets with C15 will be at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, when Fresno State takes on UCLA. This is Fox’s 4K game of the week, and 4K guru Rick Varney will show Larry the ropes as we transmit a multiplexed 4K/HD signal back to Fox for distribution to DirecTV’s 4K subscribers.
And we’ve also got a couple of high school games to round us out. Dave Mitchell and the Arizona truck are at the stadium at Mars Athletic Complex in Mars, Pennsylvania, on Friday for high school football when rivals Penn Hills and Mars battle under the Friday night lights. And Dave Meyer will head to South Sound Stadium in Lacey, Washington, with K20 on Thursday for more high school football action when Peninsula takes on North Thurston.
It’s certainly a busy week for us from coast to coast and beyond — and we wouldn’t want it any other way!