The Players Championship: PGA Tour Entertainment Live Production Takes Major Leap to the Cloud

The Players Championship: PGA TOUR Entertainment Live Production Takes Major Leap to the Cloud Every Shot Live' is back and relying even more on cloud workflow By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor

Friday, March 11, 2022 - 2:14 pm

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Between NBC's and Golf Channel's linear broadcasts, PGA TOUR Live on ESPN , PGA's Every Shot Live coverage, the TOURCast advanced shot-tracking app, and a wealth of highlights options, golf fans have more ways than ever to watch The Players Championship live this week from TPC Sawgrass. And with each added layer of distribution, PGA TOUR Entertainment has taken on more responsibility for producing that content.

We always are looking to provide more and more content to our fans, says David Dukes, senior director, technical operations, PGA TOUR Entertainment. It grows each and every year in terms of what we're being asked to produce and provide. There was a time when all we had to do was provide support for the [domestic] telecast and a couple of our international partners in the compound. Then, around 2000, we did a Live at 17,' which was the first time anyone had streamed golf. Fast-forward to today, and we've got four concurrent streams on ESPN, enhanced coverage domestically, and Every Shot Live internationally - plus the broadcasts. It's amazing to see how it has grown.

Launched in 2020, Every Shot Live offers fans an opportunity that seemed unprecedented just a few years ago: watch every shot by every golfer live. That means PGA TOUR Entertainment will deliver every single shot from 160 rounds of golf totaling more than 750 hours of live content. Add in PGA TOUR Live streaming on ESPN and the linear broadcasts on NBC Sports and Golf Channel, and the total exceeds 1,000 hours of live coverage.

Production Workflow: Taking the Next Step to the Cloud Now, in its third year of existence, PGA TOUR Entertainment relies heavily on Sony Hawk-Eye automated production, with each group produced by a team of Hawk-Eye operators located at Hawk-Eye headquarters in Basingstoke, UK.

The compound at The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass

The Hawk-Eye interface allows the operator to simply hit a button to switch all the camera feeds from one hole to the next. Every hole has a minimum of three static cameras available to the production teams, in addition to the camera feeds that NBC and Golf Channel use for coverage.

The big difference this year is, PGA has brought the entire Every Shot Live operation even further into the cloud. Although NEP Supershooter CBS mobile units are onsite to manage the 120 camera feeds for Every Shot Live coverage, the bulk of the heavy lifting is now done in the cloud. Last year, Hawk-Eye and TrackMan located their equipment and servers onsite and pushed all the program feeds directly into AWS for distribution both internationally and domestically. This year, that is all being done in the cloud, with camera feeds and embedded content pushed directly into AWS.

The big difference this year is, we're taking the 80 camera feeds for this show and pushing them directly into AWS, says Michael Raimondo, VP, broadcast technology, PGA TOUR. From there, we're spinning up servers for both Hawk-Eye and TrackMan in AWS and producing the entire show in AWS, passing it along to be distributed through AWS as well.

Interconnects are different as well, he adds. For all the [shot tracing], we're no longer doing a key and a fill. We're actually doing an HTML5 graphic. TrackMan is getting its data (which is already in AWS) from our ShotLink team, pulling that in, building a trace with their graphics engine, and handing that off through HTML to Hawk-Eye. And, instead of the Hawk-Eye people in Basingstoke [being remoted] into the TV compound like last year, they're actually plugged directly into AWS and producing the show that way.

PGA TOUR Entertainment has NEP Supershooter CBS onsite at The Players Championship, but most of the Every Shot Live effort is being done in the cloud with AWS.

This fully cloud-based workflow has streamlined operations, Raimondo notes, because his team can preconfigure the production setup in the cloud well in advance. AWS Elemental encoders are set up onsite to push the camera feeds to the cloud, and Haivision encoders pull feeds down in case they are needed in the compound or for hospitality needs.

The setup has become a lot different, he says. We can now pre-build stuff weeks beforehand since it's all cloud-based. Once you get onsite, [we just put] our camera feeds into elemental encoders, and we're ready to go. We are probably a day or two ahead of schedule compared with last year because of not having to do as much connectivity.

In terms of distribution, rightsholders like ESPN and international partners can use AWS Media Connect, be given access by PGA TOUR Entertainment, and take what they need.

The beauty of it is, Raimondo explains, whatever any of our partners need we're able to create for them. Moving to AWS has given us a whole new level of flexibility. When we need something, we can spin it up in the cloud and be able to create something new. In the past, it would have taken a lot of time and resources to do some of the things we're doing. The flexibility alone has not only reduced the amount of time it takes us to build onsite but also given us the ability to add features year to year.

Raimondo and company are also taking ShotLink data and marrying it directly to the video for archiving. As a result, PGA no longer has to live-log 160 rounds of golf tournament over the four days.

Inside PGA TOUR Entertainment's onsite production of The Players Championship in NEP Supershooter CBS this week

Working with AWS has been a hugely positive sea change in how we approach all of th

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