NBC Sports Production of THE PLAYERS Championship Spans the Globe Teamwork, remote efforts, emphasis on health and safety are key By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Friday, March 12, 2021 - 10:54 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Last year's THE PLAYERS Championship didn't make it beyond the first round as the COVID-19 pandemic caused NBC Sports, Golf Channel, and the rest of the golf world to abruptly end coverage. This year, the NBC Sports team is back at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, and is leveraging resources outside the compound in new ways.
The compound at THE PLAYERS Championship houses several NEP mobile production units and is home to NBC, PGA TOUR Entertainment, Sky UK, NHK, and more.
This weekend, says Ken Goss, EVP, remote and studio operations, NBC Sports, the team is back, having worked tirelessly alongside the PGA TOUR and NBC Sports' Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) team, as well as closely with each other.
It has been a true team effort led by Chairman Pete Bevacqua and Executive Producers Sam Flood, Molly Solomon, and Tommy Roy, Goss says. And our operations team, both remote and in the studio - led by [NBC Sports VP, Remote Technical Operations and Engineering] Craig Bernstein, [Senior Director, Golf Operations] Allison McAllister, [NBC Sports VP, Studio Operations] Tom Popple, [Senior Director, Remote Operations] Kristin Xippolitos, and [Senior Director, Remote Technical Operations] Marc Caputo - have taken great initiative to implement new protocols with the EHS team and SVP Randy Raddatz, [EVP, Business Operations] Rob Landau, and [NBC Universal SVP, Human Resources] Gemma Mansfield.
Last week, the team was producing the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, so NEP ND1's four units parked early at TPC Sawgrass and did a lot of the prep work before ND7 arrived this week and the rest of the operations were put into place.
We added trucks to keep everyone safe and socially distanced properly onsite, McAllister explains. We also have people working in Stamford and in their homes as another safety measure. Crew were tested coming in for the show and will be tested before heading home. Everyone onsite is screened daily by Medcor.
Making sure everyone is constantly safe is our number-one priority, she continues.
Extensive Complement of Cameras NBC Sports has 62 cameras on the course, including 28 hard cameras (two shooting at 360 fps for super-slo-mo needs), 18 handhelds, one Inertia Unlimited X-Mo, seven RF minis, one RF Steadicam, an RF drone, and a fixed wing flying overhead. The Live From studio show has 11 cameras, including four Telemetrics on-set robotics operated from Stamford, three hard robos, and the Flycam, which is used on both the tournament and Live From shows.
We have Flycam on 17, [providing] a breathtaking shot of 17, notes Caputo. We also have a camera Tommy Roy added last year that has a high point of view and integrates graphics showing the different weather conditions from the tee box to where the ball lands.
All told, more than 120 cameras are roaming the course for NBC Sports and PGA TOUR Entertainment. The latter has rolled out its Every Shot Live (ESL) platform at the event for the second straight year.
We hired about 15 more additional cameramen to cover ESL, says McAllister. They are in position and ready to go when the first group tees off in the morning. The ESL group actively covers all groups in the field until play ends.
At-Home Production Is Far-Flung As for offsite efforts, some are particularly remote. According to McAllister, an editor is working on the show from Ireland (as they have done all season), and a Brainstorm operator is in Stamford, along with the videoboard production.
Caputo adds that Pinpoint wind and green enhancements are handled in Sky's UK headquarters (Sky UK's T-WIZ trailer is onsite at TPC Sawgrass), and ARL is operating from New Zealand's South Island. TopTracer support is onsite but also in Sweden, and integration is handled in Stamford.
All the signals flowing between TPC Sawgrass and Stamford required four J2K IP bidirectional hitless paths, with 16 channels of audio that are under a gig. Golf transmission via NBC's NEWBERT flypack has a 600-Mbps IP circuit.
We also have a gig data circuit for file transfers, says Bernstein. As we do more and more production at home, we are figuring out how to do it more efficiently with better encoding.
The Stamford studios are just as active as the onsite crew. Popple notes that the team is busy from around 6 a.m. until 8 p.m.
We have robotic control here in Stamford and robotics in the new Studio 7, he says. We have a new look in Studio 1 that we are taking advantage of. It looks really great and translates to the screen.
NEWBERT plays a big role in getting feeds from the course to Stamford so that they can be integrated into pre/post coverage, along with updates throughout, which are done from Studio 1.
We are also using [Production Control Room 4], which is for Football Night in America and has more firepower and control, says Popple. NEWBERT sends everything, and we catch it here. It's a great team effort, and working together with this team is the best.
It has been a long year since last year's PLAYERS Championship was canceled mid-tournament, but McAllister says things are moving in the right direction, with health and safety protocols observed.
Every day is a little bit better, and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. she says. We're getting there.
The NBC Sports golf team has a busy summer ahead. It will produce host-broadcast coverage of golf at the Olympics, which will run July 23-Aug. 8. Also on the schedule are the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in June, the Open Championship at Royal St. Georges in July, and the Ryder Cup in
Most recent headlines
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Scripps Research study links sleep variability with sleep apnea and hypertension How consumers' digital activity trackers could enable personalized health s...
23/12/2025
How guilas Cibae as Dominican Winter League Games Are Locally Produced for Glob...
23/12/2025
BitFire's Jim Akimchuk on Supplying Scalability and Customization in the Clo...
23/12/2025
CAMB.AI Enables European Athletics to Offer Multi-Language SupportPlan is to eventually offer translation into all languages spoken in EuropeBy Ken Kerschbaumer...
23/12/2025
Analysis: As sports media values trend negative, scarcity and quality are king By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Monday, December 22, 2025 - 14:08
Print ...
23/12/2025
ESPN, Disney, and NBA Return to the Animated Altcast Fray With Second Edition of...
23/12/2025
End the Year on a High Note and Donate to the Sports Broadcasting Fund Today! By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 - 12:25 pm
...
23/12/2025
The year is winding down, the weather outside is frightful, and it's the perfect time to escape into a story that warms the heart. For listeners looking for...
23/12/2025
A Zeus motor is hot fire tested at L3Harris' Camden, Arkansas, solid rocket ...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Lightware will exhibit several major product innovations at ISE 2026, including the new USB-C BOOSTER-V1, Google Meet. integration for various Taurus UCX models...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
23/12/2025
Experience the power of WO Automation for Radio's newest service, the System Effectiveness Review. Designed to help you achieve more, a System Effectiveness...
23/12/2025
23 Dec 2025
VEON's Beeline Kazakhstan and Rakuten Symphony Collaborate to A...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
How Steamy Can It Get? Single's Inferno' Season 5 Pre...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
33 Million Global Viewers on Netflix Watched Jake Paul vs. Ant...
23/12/2025
New technique lights up where drugs go in the body, cell by cell Scripps Research scientists developed a technique that maps drug binding in individual cells th...
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
22/12/2025
Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...
22/12/2025
The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...
22/12/2025
Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...
22/12/2025
Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...
22/12/2025
Monday 22 December 2025
Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Spo...
22/12/2025
Back to All News
Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026
Entertainment
22 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to clipboar...
22/12/2025
Siobh n McSweeney, Rory McIlroy, Elon Musk, Catherine Connolly, Jim Gavin, Ivan Yates and Traitor Paudie Moloney lead new characters for Callan Kicks the Year 2...
22/12/2025
Winner announced in the picturesque surroundings of Wicklow's Avondale Tower and Treetop Walk
Andrew Trimble wins the show in his first series as coach
Th...
22/12/2025
The 2025 winners have been announced today, Sunday 21 December, for Ireland's largest choral competition Choirs for Christmas hosted by RT lyric fm.
Ove...
21/12/2025
Back to All News
Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Fin...
NBC Sports Production of THE PLAYERS Championship Spans the Globe Teamwork, remote efforts, emphasis on health and safety are key By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
