Fall begins this week, and with it comes cooler temperatures, changing leaves and, of course, a whole lot of football.
Rick Ball’s in Nashville for the CBS SEC Game of the Week, as the up-and-coming Vanderbilt Commodores host the Alabama Crimson Tide. John Poss is parked on the other side of the stadium providing transmission services for ESPN’s College GameDay broadcast on Saturday morning.
We’ve got a big-time 4K game down in Waco, Texas, where John May and Rick Varney are setting up our dual-antenna CK48 for Fox’s and DirecTV’s UHD broadcast of Oklahoma vs. Baylor. Our team at the PSSI International Teleport has also set up a 4K/UHD Quality Control (QC) monitoring station to ensure a quality broadcast for viewers across the country.
Senior engineer Mike Lemieux’s on his way to Annapolis in C42 for the Cincinnati vs. Navy game at the Navy-Marine Corps Stadium.
Up in East Lansing, Michigan, Charleston-based engineer Steve Toth is alongside Colorado-based engineer Mike Sheehan to provide primary and backup transmission paths for Fox’s broadcast of Notre Dame vs. Michigan State. We’ll be back in East Lansing next week for Iowa’s visit to Spartan Stadium.
We have another two-truck combo in West Lafayette, Indiana, where Steve Hagerty and John Bright are on hand for the big Michigan vs. Purdue game on Saturday afternoon. From there Mr. Hagerty (with some help from driver Dale Fountain) hustles up to Chicago to provide pre- and post-game live shots for Pittsburgh’s CBS affiliate KDKA, as the Steelers are in town to face down the Bears at Soldier Field.
Speaking of Pittsburgh, Dave Mitchell has a nice little double-header of his own this weekend. Friday night it’s Seton LaSalle Catholic High School’s homecoming game, and then on Saturday Mitch heads up to Clarion, Pennsylvania, where the Golden Eagles host the Mercyhurst Lakers.
In beautiful Boulder, Colorado, at Folsom Field, senior engineer Jim Flowers is in the Atlas truck providing the transmission for Fox’s broadcast of the No. 7 Washington State Huskies vs. the Colorado University Buffaloes.
LA-based engineer Wes Hill is in Tucson for Friday night’s game, as the Arizona Wildcats host the University of Utah.
We also have plenty of the other kind of football on our schedule this weekend: Mati Kerpen’s at the Pratt & Whitney Stadium in Connecticut where the New York City Football Club will host the Houston Dynamo on Saturday. Rick Kolinek is back at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis for Minnesota United vs. FC Dallas. This game is Minnesota United’s Kick Childhood Cancer Night, part of the “Going Gold” series that includes gold nets, flags and captain arm bands to bring attention to childhood cancer.
As you might have guessed, we have plenty of golf on our schedule, too!
Blake Blomstrom started the week off in Atlanta, Georgia, at the East Lake Golf Club for the Tour Championship. This year’s tournament will honor the late Arnold Palmer with Arnie’s March Atlanta, a walk to raise funds for the pediatric oncology division of the Aflac Cancer & Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Proceeds help support childhood cancer research and care.
Also in Atlanta this week, in conjunction with the Tour Championship, we had Kevin Spangler doing media coverage for the Payne Stewart Award. This award — given by the Professional Golfers’ Association and presented by Southern Company annually the week of the Tour Championship — was started in 2000 to remember World Golf Hall of Fame member Payne Stewart. This year’s winner was Stewart Cink, and Kevin was there to transmit every moment of this special event.
Sacramento-based engineer Steve Chaisson is at Pebble Beach Golf Links in Pebble Beach, California, to cover all the action for the Pure Insurance Championship tournament.
Last, but surely not least, Craig Henry and Kevin Spangler are already on-site with CK25 at Liberty National Golf Course for the Presidents Cup. Golf Channel engineer in charge (EIC) Tracy Michaels is also flying in to join Craig and Kevin and provide support for our extensive transmission and communications services, which will continue daily through next week. Kevin, Craig and Tracy will be tag-teaming long, intense days at the course to provide Golf Channel with total coverage of this exciting event.
Plenty of racing this weekend, too. Benny Griffis and Jim Conner are in Sparta, Kentucky, at the Kentucky Speedway for NASCAR’s General Tire Super Weekend of Racing, which includes ARCA Racing Series Crosley 150 and NXS VisitMyrtleBeach.com 300.
Dave Buckman is heading to Dragway 42 in West Salem, Ohio, with our K46 truck for the IHRA Summit Sportsman National Championship this weekend.
Out at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, our NASCAR team of the C27 truck with Ben Bradshaw and Jonathan Ayala are providing extensive multipath transmission services for the ISM Connect 300.
And of course, it wouldn’t be the weekend if we didn’t have some trucks, engineers and project managers on hand for some fighting.
Saturday night in San Antonio it’s a battle for the Muhammad Ali Trophy in the cruiser division of the World Boxing Super Series. Dmitry “Russian Hammer” Kudryashov hopes to defeat Cuban WBA World Champion Yunier “The KO Doctor” Dorticos at the world famous Alamodome. We’re there for our friends and partners in Sweden, Mobile Links Europe AB, to distribute this exciting broadcast to international viewers.
We also have a big WWE pay-per-view at the Staples Center in LA this weekend. WWE engineering savant Zane Michaels is alongside project manager Logan Schinto getting ready for this huge event that will be distributed to viewers around the world. It was great to see CK30 driver Terry Glover here in our shop, as well. It’s not often our shop crew gets their hands on this beautiful truck, but when they do they take every opportunity to spruce it up and make it run perfectly as it criss-crosses the nation for WWE. From here the guys move on to Monday Night Raw in Ontario, California, and then down to Glendale, Arizona for SmackDown on Tuesday night.
Also here in Southern California we have an HBO fight at the Fabulous Forum in Inglewood. HBO EIC Paul Blomstrom joins senior project manager Eric Hall and engineer Larry Sheets in a Ku-band uplink truck to provide total transmission services for HBO’s broadcast. Engineer Jose Sanchez and project manager Tommy Lopez will also be at the Forum for the international distribution of the fight. Rounding out our crew at the Forum is Mark Huss and Oscar Zapata, who will be providing ringside commentary services for international broadcasters. It’s going to be an exciting night in Inglewood!
We have another big Bellator fight in San Jose Saturday night. It’s Bellator 183 live from the SAP Center. Senior project manager Eric Storlie is also an excellent driver, and he’s bringing our C15 truck up from LA to join engineers Nathan Holsey, Dave Brin and Brian Blomstrom. Both the C15 and the CK35 mobile teleport will be transmitting multiple feeds for this exciting event.
Just a wee bit down the road, senior engineer Tracy Michaels and senior project manager Keith Valeri are continuing to test at Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan, where it’s a UFC Fight Night. It’s Saint Preux vs. Okami, and Keith and Tracy will ensure the fight gets to television screens all over Japan and the rest of the world on Saturday night.
It’s not all sports and fighting for PSSI Global Services. Shelby Schmidt at the PIT Studio has had a busy week with live shots and corporate videoconferences. This week Shelby managed live inserts for CNBC, CNN and Eurovision, which were distributed to the respective networks via fiber, IP and satellite uplink via the PSSI International Teleport.
We’re also looking forward to a lovely night at the opera on Saturday night. Project manager Michael Hollander is helping Chris Hovden set up our uplink truck at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to transmit a live production of Bizet’s Carmen by the LA Opera. We handle the transmission services for this Opera in the Park event every year. Jonathan Hutchinson and John Jennings will be at Exposition Park and the Santa Monica Pier to downlink Chris’s signal and feed the show to big monitors at both sites. This is free to the public and a rare opportunity to see a world-class opera in the great outdoors.
