
Live From THE PLAYERS: NBC Sports Tees Up Drone Tracing, Taps Into NEP Compound Connect In a new wrinkle, NBC will start its telecast on Saturday from PGA TOUR Studios new Studio 1A By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Friday, March 14, 2025 - 12:21 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
It's day two of THE PLAYERS at TPC Sawgrass, and this year's event is surrounded by a lot of excitement, most notably about the new PGA TOUR Studios building. That massive building, located about 500 ft. from the TV compound, is a hotbed of next-generation broadcast technology and workflows and will be front and center on Saturday afternoon when NBC begins live broadcast coverage from the building. It's all part of a production that continues to see NBC Sports and the PGA TOUR working more closely together every year.
This weekend, NBC Sports broadcasts THE PLAYERS Championship from TPC Sawgrass. (Photos: Carrie Bowden, SVG)
Our relationship with the TOUR gets stronger every year, says Bridget Cugle, director, golf operations, NBC Sports. They are a great partner. PLAYERS week has been a true testimony to this, with everything going smoothly.
The production effort on Saturday will take advantage of something else new this year: NBC will start the telecast from PGA TOUR Studios' Studio 1A. NEP's TFC Compound Connect system connects the building to NEP PGA TOUR, ND2, and Sharpshooter CBS trucks and NBC's IP NEWBERT flypack. Compound Connect allows signals to be shared via NEP TFC technology and SMPTE ST 2110 workflow.
In addition, nine intercoms are trunked, explains Marc Caputo, senior director, remote technical operations, NBC Sports, and comms are seamless between the onsite trucks, PGA TOUR building, and NBC Sports Stamford.
A PLAYERS first this year is drone tracing, he adds. It is one of three drones covering the course. PGA TOUR introduced drone tracing during the 2023 season, and the solution is a joint effort by the TOUR, Kaze Aerial, ARL, Bolt 6, and Trackman. It has revolutionized golf coverage.
On the 18th green, NBC also has an incoming trace provided by RoboVision and ARL using Trackman data. On holes 16 and 17, the broadcaster is taking the feeds from a Cosm cam installed in the water next to each green.
The TV compound for THE PLAYERS continues to evolve and is centered on NEP's PGA TOUR mobile units.
At the heart of the compound is NEP's multi-unit PGA TOUR fleet, which debuted last season and is home to both NBC Sports and CBS Sports golf productions. The Production Control Room unit is the main production area; Field Acquisition Units 1 and 2 houses the EICs, fiber patching, video shading, the A1 area, submix, and the majority of QC for audio; and a Record Flex truck comprises EVS operations, editing, and rules review. Also onsite are two BSI trailers: a main truck, which is now a double-wide, and a hauler providing up to 36 RF camera paths. NEP Supershooter CBS is on hand for Every Shot Live coverage.
More than 70 cameras have been deployed for the tournament, including the aforementioned live drone tracing, drone coverage of the 16th and 17th holes (which will also have bunker cams), and a FlyCam once again running between the 9th and 18th holes.
With the PGA TOUR trucks, says Jason Abrams, director, remote technical operations, NBC Sports, we were able to have them parked on Monday and build out 76 cameras in 72 hours so that we could be on air by Wednesday.
More from Sports Video Group
20/03/2026
Net Insight will introduce a JPEG XS solution for full IP environments at NAB Sh...
20/03/2026
LTN has expanded its technology partnership with Harmonic ahead of the FCC's...
20/03/2026
Solid State Logic will preview SSL Live V6.2 at NAB Show, booth C6907. The softw...
20/03/2026
FUJIFILM North America Corporation's Optical Devices Division has announced ...
20/03/2026
FUJIFILM North America Corporation's Optical Devices Division has announced ...
20/03/2026
TrueVisions NOW, a streaming platform in Thailand and part of the TrueVisions Group, has selected Bitmovin's Observability product for real-time video analy...
20/03/2026
Marquee Sports Network has announced distribution agreements with Hulu + Live TV and Prime Video ahead of the 2026 MLB season.
Marquee Sports Network is now av...
20/03/2026
FOR-A will exhibit software-defined and AI-driven solutions at NAB Show 2026, bo...
20/03/2026
TNA Wrestling and Eurosport India have entered into a multi-year exclusive progr...
20/03/2026
When Athletes Unlimited brought its professional women's basketball season t...
20/03/2026
In this craft interview, Rick Bernier reflects on a career that has taken him to...
20/03/2026
Lawo will announce a new product ahead of NAB Show 2026 in Las Vegas, where it w...
20/03/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
20/03/2026
Major League Baseball (MLB) has named Polymarket as its Official Prediction Mark...
20/03/2026
With AI now the industry-wide priority, Big Tech companies are uniquely position...
20/03/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
20/03/2026
Abundant player mics and RF and other ground-level cameras will be used to captu...
20/03/2026
Regional site will also receive big boost in production resources, including on-...
19/03/2026
Live sports production increases complexity, with dynamic audio levels and an overall philosophy that encourages transient volume spikes
Fourteen years ago, Am...
19/03/2026
Advanced Systems Group, a technology and services provider for media creatives and content owners, announced the appointment of Peter Thordarson to the newly cr...
19/03/2026
For this senior from the Bay Area, the speed and pressure of live sports production play right into her strengths
In the live-sports-video industry, the future...
19/03/2026
Grass Valley has expanded its long-term partnership with University of Pittsburg...
19/03/2026
Audio-Technica has released the ATV-SG1 and ATV-SG1LE On-Camera Shotgun Microphones, designed for use with DSLR, mirrorless SLR, and other cameras.
The ATV-SG1...
19/03/2026
Harmonic (booth W2831) announces updates to its XOS Advanced Media Processor aim...
19/03/2026
DAZN and Top Rank have announced a multi-year partnership that will bring Top Ra...
19/03/2026
IHSE, a provider of KVM systems, has announced a partnership with Cyviz AS, a provider of technology solutions for collaboration and mission-critical operations...
19/03/2026
Net Insight has appointed Larissa G rner-Meeus as Chief Product Officer. She joins the company's executive management team.
G rner-Meeus holds a Dipl-Ing. ...
19/03/2026
Leader Electronics of Europe has appointed Rob Stanley as Regional Sales Manager for the UK and Northern Europe. In the role, he will manage key accounts and ha...
19/03/2026
FIFA has announced that YouTube will be a Preferred Platform for the FIFA World Cup 2026.
Under the agreement, FIFA's Media Partners will be able to publis...
19/03/2026
New features across mobile, connected devices, and automotive platforms undersco...
19/03/2026
PSSI Global Services has appointed Ben Bradshaw as Director of Product and Netwo...
19/03/2026
Cobalt Digital has announced its NAB 2026 product lineup, which includes additio...
19/03/2026
Sportradar has released a new report, Innovation in Sports Media: The Next Era of Sports Viewing, examining how the sports viewing experience in the U.S. is evo...
19/03/2026
Matrox Video has been awarded a three-year framework agreement to supply its Con...
19/03/2026
CBS Sports' Jason Cohen and TNT Sports' Chris Brown lead the charge on n...
19/03/2026
A1 Dave Grundtvig and his team deploy plenty of mics to capture the sounds and energy from the stands as well the court
March Madness is a tournament in which ...
18/03/2026
Newly named chief product officer (CPO), Larissa G rner Meeus will return to Net Insight on May 4.
Larissa G rner Meeus will become CPO of Net Insight on May 4...
18/03/2026
SVG Europe's The Football Summit 2026 explored how the sports broadcasting i...
18/03/2026
The 2026 NAB Show kicks off one month from today and SVG is once again set to cover the show from every angle. SVG's SportsTech@NAB Show Blog is now live - ...
17/03/2026
NASA+'s Rebecca Sirmons and Brittany Brown offer unique look at live streami...
17/03/2026
The transition to IP has fundamentally reshaped professional media infrastructures. Video, audio, and increasingly metadata now circulate as independent, precis...
17/03/2026
Live sports streaming can push every element in your video delivery chain to its limit, exposing every potential weakness in seconds. When the Super Bowl, the O...
17/03/2026
Texas Athletics sought to modernize its media production, enhance fan experience...
17/03/2026
Ikegami USA will demonstrate the latest additions to its wide range of broadcast...
17/03/2026
TNA Wrestling and iHeartMedia announces a new multi-platform collaboration that will integrate iHeartMedia across TNA's premium live events, weekly televisi...
17/03/2026
The goal was to transform Hard Rock Stadium into a global leader in sports and e...
17/03/2026
Spectrum has announced the launch of its new Multiview feature in the Spectrum TV App, giving customers the ability to watch up to four NCAA men's or women&...
17/03/2026
Genius Sports deal also covers data technology, AI, fan engagement, and performance analysis....
17/03/2026
Net Insight is supporting the rollout of a new state-wide centralized operation with Rede Massa, which is an SBT affiliate, the Brazilian regional television ne...
17/03/2026
Featuring audio from practice sessions, qualifying races, and Grand Prix races, the film represents Apple's sports-media ambitions
At Sunday night's Ac...