Happy New Year! 2019 is off to a roaring start for PSSI Global Services as we close out the college football season and jump right into basketball, golf, racing, and awards season. Here’s a look at what we’re up to on the first weekend of what is sure to be an exciting year of engineering broadcast solutions for customers new and old alike.
Let’s start with football, where one heckuva long and exciting season will culminate in the big game on Monday night. It’s the National Championship game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA, and we are pulling out all the stops for our friends at ESPN. Rick Ball and Brian Blomstrom are setting up the CK35 mobile teleport for 20+ outbound transmission paths via fiber and satellite and a dozen inbound feeds for ESPN’s MegaCast of the rematch between the Clemson Tigers and the Alabama Crimson Tide. There’s no other uplink truck in the country that could handle all of the distribution and monitoring required for such a huge show, and the two engineers at the helm of the truck are the best in the business.
There’s much more than the big game keeping us busy in Northern California, of course. Steve Chaisson’s over at the SAP Center in San Jose for full Media Day coverage. From there he’ll head to Treasure Island in San Francisco to meet up with Dave Brin. Dave and Steve will be providing redundant transmission paths for the halftime show, which features a live performance by Imagine Dragons and Li’l Wayne. Chris Hovden’s spending his week at Cesar Chavez Park in San Jose providing transmission services for all of the College GameDay shows leading up to the big game (and after, as well). And PSSI News Group’s Todd Anderson is at Levi’s Stadium for CNN’s coverage of all the hoopla surrounding the big game.
Huge thanks to project manager Gavin Williams for working alongside Rick Ball to keep up with all of ESPN’s complex transmission requirements as they’ve developed over the past month, and to our shipping and logistics teams for making sure all the trucks, equipment, and personnel are in the right places at the right times to ensure a seamless broadcast across the ESPN networks. What a way to close out the season!
It’s a very busy weekend in the great state of California. Down the coast in Los Angeles, all our trucks and engineers are booked for exciting sports and entertainment events.
Mark Huss will be in the LA Sprinter and Wes Hill in the NT25 truck down at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, CA for the 2019 Golden Globes awards on Sunday. Strategic Television project managers Michael Hollander and Eric Hall will also be on hand to ensure clean domestic and international distributions of the event, which we do every year. This year’s hosts Sandra Oh and Andy Samberg promise to make this year’s star-studded event a must-see.
Also in LA, it’s the live season premiere of the Bachelor on ABC! Engineers Larry Sheets and Jose Sanchez will be setting up and testing the domestic feeds on Sunday in preparation for the big night on Monday, which will originate at the historic Fonda Theater. We are also managing the production and transmission of multiple remote feeds from around the country. Steve Hagerty’s in Michigan, Mike Sheehan’s in Park City, UT, and Ron Ford’s in Dallas, each delivering a live insert into the program on Monday night. Paul Blomstrom will be in town to receive all of these feeds and deliver them to production for broadcast. It’s a complicated show with a lot of moving parts, but our project management and engineering teams are up to the challenge!
There’s even a little basketball going on during all this excitement in LA. Todd Harvey’s in town for the big matchup between the USC Trojans and Stanford Cardinal women’s basketball teams on Sunday at the Galen Center. Todd will be doing yet another “at-home” transmission for ESPN, who will produce the show at their headquarters in Connecticut.
We’re delivering more great basketball games around the country, almost all of them in partnership with our friends at CBS Sports Network.
Justin Roszak and the NT33 were at the Yuengling Center in Tampa, FL on Wednesday when the USF Bulls took on the UConn Huskies and won.
Dennis Smith and the NT21 were at Hagan Arena in Philadelphia, PA on Thursday when the George Mason Patriots beat the St. Joe’s Hawks.
Big day on Saturday!
Dave Buckman and the Columbia truck will be at Capitol One Arena in Washington, D.C. when the St. John’s Red Storm take on the Georgetown Hoyas.
Dennis Smith and the NT21 will be at Temple University’s McGonigle Hall in Philadelphia, PA when the USF Bulls take on the Temple Owls in women’s basketball.
Mike Howley and the C45 will be at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence, RI, where the Friars host the Villanova Wildcats – this game on behalf of our friends at Fox.
Benny Griffis and the K38 will be at Williams Arena in Greenville, NC when the Cincinnati Bearcats face the East Carolina Pirates.
Gary O’Donovan and the NT29 will be at the Elma Roane Fieldhouse in Memphis, TN, where the UCF Knights women’s basketball team faces the Memphis Tigers.
We are pleased to embark upon yet another year as the exclusive satellite transmission provider for our friends and partners at Golf Channel. Project manager Jennifer Hyder-Michaels is busy building a year’s worth of golf tournaments and events into our truck schedules. And we have already begun to provide uplink services! Senior engineers Tracy Michaels and Mike Lemieux are rocking and rolling at the 2019 Sentry Tournament of Champions at the Kapalua Plantation Course in Maui, HI. The guys have one of our large-aperture C-band antennas set up in tandem with our new-and-improved Ku-band uplink truck and engineering platform. These assets have greatly increased our capabilities in Hawaii, for Golf Channel and other customers who are looking for high-end transmission services from the islands.
Next week the whole rig (along with Tracy and Mike) float to Honolulu for the next tournament. We’re also floating a truck to the Bahamas for another golf tournament, then another right behind that one… Golf Channel has us on the move in January, and we wouldn’t want it any other way!
Much more to come in next week’s roundup, and for the rest of 2019!