Busy late summer weekend, and we are already cooking!
Let’s kick things off with some football. How ‘bout them Carolina Gamecocks?! Chris Golden’s about to let us know as he sets up for the opening weekend of SEC football on CBS. We guess there’s a chance the Alabama Crimson Tide might put up a fight, but everybody’d better tune in Saturday afternoon to find out! We are looking forward to another great season of Saturdays with our friends at CBS on the highest-profile college football games on television.
Fox is keeping us pretty busy, as usual, this weekend.
Our 4K game of the week is at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames, IA on Saturday. The Iowa Hawkeyes are in town to take on the Cyclones, and 4K guru Rick Varney is all set up for the 4K/HD broadcast. Wes Hill is 4K guru-in-training this week, and he will have the newly improved C49 truck next to Rick’s C21 for fully redundant transmission services.
Staying in the heart of the country, Mike Lemieux’s fresh off a well-deserved vacation and ready for some Indiana Hoosier football on Saturday. He has the CK25 mobile teleport at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington, IN for the game between Indiana and the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Up the road in East Lansing, MI, John May and David Mitchell are in town for the game between the Spartans and the Arizona State Sun Devils. John’s handling the C-band pathway while Mitch handles Ku-band.
More Big 10 action, and another Memorial Stadium. This time it’s the one in Lincoln, NE, where Mike Sheehan is on hand for the game between the Cornhuskers and Northern Illinois on Saturday. Mike stays on the road for golf in South Dakota next week.
Back East, we are at Navy Marine Corps Stadium on Saturday for the Navy game. This time Mike Howley’s on hand for the game between the Midshipmen and Eastern Carolina.
Nick Ray is in between WWE jobs at Mountaineer Field in Morgantown, WV, where he’ll be handling Fox’s coverage of the game between West Virginia and NC State. This is another one of Fox’s “home run” productions, with multiple cameras sent back over satellite to Fox studios in LA for the finishing touches.
Keeping in the mid-Atlantic, Blake Blomstrom has another NFL Tailgate production and uplink for our friends at the NFL Network. Blake and teammate Dennis Smith will have the Frontline truck working hard at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore to capture all the tailgate excitement before the game between the Ravens and the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday.
Out West, we have another NFL game on our schedules. Larry Sheets is going to be at the LA Coliseum for the Rams game, testing on Saturday, game on Sunday. The New Orleans Saints are in town, and it should be a good one, live on Fox.
More California football on Saturday: John Jennings will be at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena for Saturday’s matchup between the Oklahoma Sooners and UCLA Bruins. This gig is right on the heels of another successful transmission for John at LA Center Studios on Thursday night, where Turner’s Chasing the Cure continues its run of live broadcasts.
And all the way up the coast, David Meyer is back at Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver, where the University of British Columbia will host the Calgary Dinos in more Canadian college football.
Football’s keeping us busy, but it’s not the only game in town. Big weekend of golf, as well!
Steve Hagerty’s holding down the fort at Warwick Hills Golf & Country Club in Grand Blanc, MI. Steve’s there for Golf Channel’s coverage of the Ally Challenge, another stop on the Senior Champions Tour.
Craig Henry’s finishing up a great week of Golf Channel News transmissions from the Old White Course at The Greenbrier in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Craig has multiple paths coming out of the powerhouse C31 truck, including tournament coverage, live standups, and emergency backups.
Time for another big time WWE pay-per-view. We love the weekly RAW and Smackdown shows, but it’s also great to flex our transmission and project management muscles with one of our best customers. Strategic Television project manager Logan Schinto is on his way to the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, NC. He’ll meet up with CK30 driver Joe Kelderhouse and senior engineer Zane Michaels for Sunday’s Clash of Champions pay-per-view. Logan has booked multiple inbound and outbound transmission pathways for domestic and international distribution, phones and internet for production, and extensive teleport services for this huge event. PSSI International Teleport is a key player in the transmission architecture, ingesting and turning around multiple feeds for our friends at WWE. We won’t rest for long before heading to Knoxville and Atlanta for RAW and Smackdown.
Let’s go back to Canada, eh? UFC road dogs Jim Flowers and Garrett Hunt are setting up with engineer Dave Brin outside Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia for this weekend’s UFC on ESPN+ event. Alongside our friends at Concom, we’re looking to be in good shape for multiple fiber pathways for the event, which features Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone versus Justin Gaethje in the main event.
Our friends at DAZN are keeping us on our toes lately! Steve Toth just wrapped up another edition of the Pat McAfee show, live a hotel from Winston-Salem on Friday. We provided video transmission services along with a little cellular-based internet for production. We’ll be doing much the same thing in New Orleans next week as we continue to follow the McAfee train around the country!
We’re doing another production and uplink for DAZN, this time near the Staples Center. Senior engineer Tracy Michaels is coming over from Vegas to run the K34 production uplink truck for this multi-camera press conference. Jose Sanchez and Chris Hovden are there for production and transmission support, while Strategic Television project manager Eric Hall is there to help cross the t’s and dot the I’s for our friends at DAZN. We’ve got another one next week, too!
Justin Roszak is back on the IMSA circuit this weekend, providing extensive at-home transmission services via satellite and AT&T Global Video Services fiber. It’s the Monterey Sportscar Championship, live from the WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on Sunday. The PSSI International Teleport figures prominently here, just as it does for the NASCAR Cup Race in Vegas this week.
We’ll finish up the roundup in Vegas with a pile of exciting live events. Kyle Meyer and Joe Cox are at the helm of the C27 mobile teleport at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for a week of racing that will culminate in Sunday’s South Point 400 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Race. Kyle and Joe are handling transmission and data services via fiber and satellite for our friends at NASCAR, with PIT as the hub for all feeds en route to NASCAR headquarters in Charlotte and points beyond.
Earlier in the week, Matt Huennekens handled a complex satellite media tour for our friends at NASCAR, with a multiplexed transmission and comms for multiple talent at the Las Vegas Media Day event at the South Point Casino.
That wasn’t our only media event on Thursday, as there’s a big fight in town this weekend. On Thursday, Larry Sheets and Mark Huss were at the MGM Grand for a satellite media tour featuring Tyson Fury and Otto Wallin, who will square off on Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena. There we have a dream team of brothers Brian and Paul Blomstrom joined by senior engineer Rick Ball and Strategic Television project manager David Gallardo, all setting up the CK35 mobile teleport for multiple fight feeds. This is the second 1080p fight for our friends at ESPN, which will come out of the CK35’s mighty C-band antenna back to ESPN headquarters in Connecticut. Top Rank’s international feeds are on the Ku-band side of the truck, and will make their way to boxing fans around the world after a stop at the PSSI International Teleport. We’ve also got a backup IP path for Top Rank’s feed, utilizing some cutting-edge tech from our friends at Nextologies!
Of course that’s not all we’re doing. The weigh-in is on Friday at the Ka Theatre at the MGM Grand. Brian Blomstrom and Rick Ball are over there to provide ESPN with a multiplexed transmission, and have also handed production internet and phones via satellite. These services also come in and out of PIT, on satellite space on EUT 113WA provided by our friends at Eutelsat. Quite the team effort!
And that’s still not all! ESPN sweetened the deal by keeping us in Vegas for Sunday’s WNBA playoff matchup between the Las Vegas Aces and Chicago Sky, live from the Thomas & Mack Center. This transmission will stay underground, as we are multiplexing 10 cameras and delivering the signals to Bristol via fiber.
What a great weekend to show off everything we can do, from multi-platform transmissions to event management to remote connectivity! Tune in next week for what’s shaping up to be the busiest weekend in the history of PSSI Global Services!