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.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
06/04/2026
Michigan legends bring a new voice to the broadcast as TNT Sports and CBS Sports...
06/04/2026
From high school sports all the way up to the major leagues, building high-quali...
06/04/2026
Quickplay, an AI company for the media and entertainment industry, has been accepted into the Advanced tier of the TwelveLabs Ecosystem Partner Program. Quickpl...
06/04/2026
Grass Valley has announced the Future Playmakers Program, a global initiative to...
06/04/2026
El l der de operaciones impulsa la producci n en estudio mientras encuentra insp...
06/04/2026
The ops leader helps lead the charge in studio for the Spanish-language broadcas...
06/04/2026
Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, includ...
06/04/2026
The National Hockey League (NHL), in partnership with Verizon and the New Jersey Devils, today announced the opening of the NHL Innovation Lab powered by Verizo...
06/04/2026
Rock League, a new professional curling league, has announced that ESPN+ will stream its inaugural 2026 season for fans in the United States. The first Rock Lea...
06/04/2026
Advanced Systems Group has announced the appointment of Andrea (Andy) Cummis as Vice President of Systems Design and Engineering. In this role, she will lead de...
06/04/2026
Backed by Bolt Ventures, the venture brings Bryson DeChambeau, Grant Horvat, and...
06/04/2026
With this environment we can start that collaboration even earlier because we ca...
06/04/2026
Like the immortal lives of vampires, some stories never really end. That's t...
06/04/2026
As podcasting continues to evolve, growth increasingly means building beyond aud...
06/04/2026
Multiband dynamics plug-in enhanced
California-based developer FSK Audio have released a significant update for their innovative multiband dynamics processo...
06/04/2026
Share official & user-created full-rig presets
IK Multimedia's latest TONEX update makes it possible for users of the popular amp and effects modelling ...
06/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/04/2026
Dalet Showcases Dalia Agentic AI and End-to-End Media Workflows at NAB Show 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Dalet, a leading technology and...
06/04/2026
OpenDrives Shows Off Sports Expertise in Sports Business Hub located in NAB Show...
06/04/2026
Proton to Demonstrate 3D Application at NAB 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Yet further creative potential unleashed through innovation in ...
06/04/2026
Autoscript Highlights Voice-Driven Prompting and PTZ Solutions at NAB 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Experience Autoscript Voice, PTZ prom...
06/04/2026
Mediaproxy Highlights Significant Enhancements to its LogServer suite at NAB Sho...
06/04/2026
Wayne, N.J., April 6th, 2026 Phantom High-Speed announces the release of PCC 4...
06/04/2026
April 6th, 2026
TRIBECA STUDIOS AND LILLY ANNOUNCE WINNERS OF INAUGURAL VITAL...
06/04/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Expands Kids Entertainment Lineup With Playground App ...
05/04/2026
Tackles all reported bugs!
SoundBridge have just announced the launch of a new update that introduces a couple of minor changes to their remote collaboratio...
04/04/2026
The University of Arizona's Men's Basketball team has only loss twice th...
04/04/2026
1080p HDR arrives, a new generation of storytelling tools takes center stage, an...
04/04/2026
Michigan legends bring a new voice to the broadcast as TNT Sports and CBS Sports...
04/04/2026
Faster, cleaner and more intuitive than ever
The control software for Flock Audio's digitally controlled patchbay systems has just been treated to an up...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
DHD Introduces AI-Based Audio Noise Reduction to XD3 IP Core
Brie Clayton April 3, 2026
0 Comments
The accompanying image shows the rear panel of the ...
04/04/2026
Macnica Redefines ST 2110 Flexibility with Two Speeds on One Card
Brie Clayton April 3, 2026
0 Comments
New for NAB Show 2026, MEP100 SmartNIC now sup...
04/04/2026
Unified Media Workflows for Story-Centric Production
Brie Clayton April 3, 2026
0 Comments
Framelight X unifies field capture, editing and publishing ...
03/04/2026
Michigan's Fab Five will reunite for an alternate presentation of the Mich...
03/04/2026
Avid will exhibit at NAB Show 2026 (April 18-22, Booth N2226, Las Vegas Convention Center), demonstrating its Content Core platform and new AI-driven workflow c...
03/04/2026
Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) has announced the appointment of Nick Barthee as Chief Operating Officer.
The announcement follows MRMC's transition fro...
03/04/2026
Interra Systems has announced that Elite Media Technologies has selected its BATON file-based QC solution for media workflows. Elite Media Technologies speciali...
03/04/2026
Ateme has announced that Moldtelecom has deployed Ateme technologies across its streaming workflow, covering encoding, delivery, operations, and analytics.
Mol...
03/04/2026
Grass Valley will demonstrate Framelight X, its content management platform, at NAB Show 2026. The platform connects capture, ingest, editing, and publishing in...
03/04/2026
Encompass Digital Media and Techex have announced a cloud-native Master Control ...
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 
