This is the last weekend before the college football season starts, but it’s hardly the calm before the storm as we manage exciting live events across the country…including a little football!
We continue our successful run of preseason NFL football before the regular season kicks off. A first for us (and the NFL): a game in Winnipeg! Joe Cox and Dave Brin each had a Ku-band truck North of the Border on Thursday for the game between the Packers and Raiders at Investors Group Field. Oakland squeaked past the Packers to come away with the win in front of a stadium full of Canadian football fans.
Blake Blomstrom was back at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia on Thursday night, where the Ravens beat the Eagles handily.
Way down South, Mike Howley finds himself at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, FL, where the Tampa Bay Buccaneers host the Cleveland Browns in a Friday night preseason matchup.
And Wes Hill is on his way to Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, MO, where the Chiefs will host the San Francisco 49ers in a prime-time matchup on Saturday night. Wes is a California native, but he’ll be wearing neutral colors in his truck to avoid any bad blood.
Dave “Mitch” Mitchell is heading to Lucas Oil Stadium for Saturday’s matchup between the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears, while Brian Blomstrom is on his way to Texas for the game between the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans at AT&T Stadium on Saturday night.
We’re also going to get a jump on the college football season on Saturday, as Steve Hagerty will be at Colgate’s Andy Kerr Stadium for the FCS kickoff. The Raiders host the Villanova Wildcats in a game that will be broadcast on CBS Sports Network.
Larry Sheets is going to enjoy a little high school football action in Southern California on Saturday night. He and Chris Hovden will be setting up for a 7-channel at-home transmission for our friends at ESPN. St. John Bosco will host the Dematha Catholic Stags in this nationally televised game.
Larry spent Thursday night at the Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, CA for Golden Boy DAZN Boxing’s Thursday Night Fights, where Luis Feliciano and Blair Cobbs picked up some big wins on a night full of entertaining fights.
Ron Ford’s enjoying a little boxing himself, as he sets up his K26 truck at Main Street in Broken Arrow, OK. Vladimir Shishkin versus DeAndre Ware is the headline fight for ShoBox: The New Generation on Friday night, and it should be a good one.
A good ways south of Ron, John May will be in the CK48 mobile teleport at Bert Ogden Arena in Edinburg, TX for PBC on FS1 boxing, live from South Texas on Saturday night. John’s providing our friends at Fox with a three-channel multiplexed transmission, which will include an international program. Brandon Figueroa will take on Javier Nicolas Chacon in the main event, following a series of exciting undercards.
The WWE train is heading to New Orleans, with Zane Michaels and driver Joe Kelderhouse running the CK30 mobile teleport for Monday Night RAW at the Smoothie King Center. On Sunday, Zane will cover the Big3 basketball event at the very same venue! Then the team moves forward to Baton Rouge for Tuesday Night Smackdown.
Tennis, anyone? Steve Toth got a last second call to help out our friends at Concom with a satellite transmission for the Winston-Salem Open, part of the ATP Tour. Steve’s uplinking all the matches from Wake Forest University after hustling himself and his truck into position earlier this week.
It’s a busy week of golf for us, with trucks and engineers at four different courses through the weekend. Kevin Spangler’s putting in long hours and doing great work for Golf Channel News at the Coca-Cola Championship, which takes place at Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club.
David Meyer has C47 all set up at the Boeing Classic in Snoqualmie, WA. David kicked off his tournament coverage earlier in the week with a live remote insert into the Payne Stewart Awards at the Ritz Carlton Atlanta, where Mike Lemieux caught David’s live shot for incorporation into the prestigious awards show.
Steve Chaisson’s up in Boise, ID for the Albertson’s Boise Open at Hillcrest Country Club. From there the C43 will travel north to Calgary for next week’s Shaw Charity Classic!
Chris Golden’s already covering some golf in Canada, as he’s in the CK25 mobile teleport for the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open, live from the Magna Golf Club in Aurora, Ontario this weekend.
We are spending quiet a lot of time in Canada lately!
Rick Ball’s back at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario, providing complex transmission services for one of three huge NASCAR events this weekend. Rick’s encoding and transmitting 14 video channels over satellite, which our team at PSSI International Teleport will ingest and hand off to NASCAR headquarters in Charlotte via AT&T Global Video Services fiber. A weekend full of racing will culminate in Sunday’s Chevy Silverado 250, another stop on the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series.
Since there’s no Monster Energy Drink Cup Series racing this weekend, the C27 mobile teleport is enjoying something different at Road America in Elkhart Lake, WI. Jonathan Ayala and Ben Bradshaw are there to transmit over 20 pathways via satellite and fiber back to NASCAR via PIT for the Xfinity Series, which will finish up on Saturday night.
And Justin Roszak is down at Virginia International Raceway for another installment of the WeatherTech IMSA series: the Michelin GT Challenge. Justin’s transmitting 30 videos and hundreds of audios via satellite and fiber, again utilizing the PSSI International Teleport as the hub between NASCAR and the track. Even on an “off” week, our entire NASCAR team is working around the clock to provide one of our best customers with cutting-edge transmission services.
In the entertainment world, we are back at MTV’s Video Music Awards. This year the show will air on Monday night, live from the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. Blake Blomstrom will be setting up this weekend for the big show, which is hosted by Sebastian Maniscalco and will feature live performances by Queen Latifah, Taylor Swift, and Redman. It’s sure to be a great show!
Back in LA, we’re providing production and transmission services at another live concert in Hollywood. It’s Brockhampton’s album release party, and John Jennings and Alex Mestizo are there with our K34 production/uplink hybrid to provide multiple services for this event.
And we’ll close with something a little quieter: Dave Mitchell was at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Wheeling, WV for the Installation Mass for Bishop Mark E. Brennan, who became the ninth bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston on Thursday. PIT ingested Mitch’s signal, added captioning, and then re-uplinked the signal to multiple outlets, including EWTN in Birmingham.
That’s it! Another week full of multiple live event services for the world’s experts in events, transmission and connectivity!