Live from the 2023 Ryder Cup: Sky Sports Virtual Studio in UK Plays Big Role in Remote Production By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Saturday, September 30, 2023 - 3:08 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
It's been a busy run of top golf events for the team at Sky Sports and this week's Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club outside of Rome, following quickly on the heels of last week's Solheim Cup in Spain, the women's equivalent of the men's Ryder Cup.
The components of our Solheim and Ryder Cup coverage are fairly similar, with a World Feed plus commentary plus a studio on site, says Jason Wessely, Sky Sports Golf, executive producer. And then there is a gallery and master control operation back at Sky that brings it all together.
Jason Wessely, Sky Sports Golf, Executive Producer (left) and Katie Harrison, Sky Sports, Production Manager in the 2023 Ryder Cup compound.
This Ryder Cup marks the first time at any tournament where Sky Sports and The Golf Channel are sharing a studio location. Located on the first tee, it gives both production teams a chance to leverage the same facility during dayparts that are optimal for their audience back home. Sky is on air in the morning and during the day while The Golf Channel takes over at the end of the day.
Timing wise in the U.S. it's much better to use it after the match is finished while in the morning, we can build up on the first tee with a lovely studio set looking into the crowd and the energy of that crowd, adds Wessely.
While The Golf Channel is wrapping up the day's action on the studio Sky Sports switches over to a standup position with an RF camera on the side of the 18th green. Sky also rebroadcasts The Golf Channel Live From show, giving viewers in the UK a bonus two-hour recap.
We'll manage that two hours from a smaller gallery at Sky, so we can deal with any non-compliant stuff that we want to edit out on the fly, explains Wessely. We could also run in our content to replace their content if we feel it's not quite right for our audience, but it is quite light touch.
The studio operations back home is also busy during the Ryder Cup as a virtual green-screen studio in Osterley Park is handling a variety of coverage elements. A camera at the Ryder Cup course shoots backdrops at different times of the day and those images are then dropped in the back screen projection as the goal is to make the viewer at home feel that that the virtual set is an extension of the real studio set on site.
Our player avatars, virtual course, and touchscreen are all presented from there and it's designed to look as though it is here at the course, says Wessely. As soon as the player pairings are known the team there gets to work on building the players and building the editorial. Then they record the head piece in the virtual set and when the time comes, they run that into the program with a throw from the real studio here to the 3D virtual studio.
Building out the player avatars is a process that began with player recordings last Tuesday and Wednesday. The recording process requires the players to stand on a rotating plank so that cameras can capture them from all angles.
We'll get some still photography, a few questions, and have some fun with them so that process is really important to us, adds Wessely. We then map their 3D images, which is crucial to our virtual presentation.
The storytelling rhythm of a Ryder Cup or Solheim Cup is very different from a major golf tournament as matches can end prior to 18 holes (and often do). The Ryder Cup, ideally, has very little time between sessions but if needed on-course RF kits and on-course reporters can do reports or interviews.
Plus, we have the virtual studio back in Sky recording the pairing for the afternoon and we play that into the break section to reveal to the viewer who was going to play in the afternoon, says Wessely. The time goes by pretty fast.
Next week the Sky golf team head to Scotland for another unique event: the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship which is played across three courses: Old Course at St. Andrews; Carnoustie; and Kingsbarns.
We choose one course to focus on each time, but we have remote OBs at every location for each day and then we try and lean into the celebrity aspect and do interviews with the celebrities while playing and have some fun with it because it is a different event.
Key to keeping spirits high for the team is having good golf and that is what they have had for the past couple of months, from the Open in Liverpool to the BMW Championship in Wentworth, the Solheim Cup in Spain, and now the Ryder Cup.
As long as the golf is good, it keeps the spirits going, and weather is the other thing that can dampen the spirit, says Wessely. The trick is keeping the remote team back at Sky motivated and we find clever ways to get them out to the golf course during the year. Yes, they can sleep in their own beds but it's also hard to gauge the event when you're working at home. So, a mixture of OBs, remote, and clever ways of getting them to venues is the secret to remote broadcasting because it's here to stay.
North America Stories
23/07/2026
Evergent (5.A86) will showcase its Agentic Revenue Orchestration Platform for streaming services, sports leagues, pay-TV operators at IBC2026 (RAI Amsterdam, 11...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
David Dvir, 2D founder (left), Sundeep Reddy (center), and Jean-Marc Bouchut (right), both of Zeiss...
23/07/2026
Lock in and load up the cloud. GFN Thursday brings fresh updates and new adventu...
22/07/2026
Among other tweaks to coverage, the broadcaster added announce positions in the ...
22/07/2026
The Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) has reported a sharp acceleration in Australia's sportstech sector, with revenue growth rising from 10% in...
22/07/2026
From a retrofitted broadcast bus to packed Match Day Live! events, Bennett detai...
22/07/2026
TMRW Sports has named Brendan Donohue as President, Flag Football, where he will lead the company's professional flag football business in partnership with ...
22/07/2026
Stephen Arnold Music (SAM) designed and produced soundtracks for nine projection...
22/07/2026
Harmonic has announced a $25,000 donation to Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) fo...
22/07/2026
Telemundo has announced it has acquired from UC3 exclusive U.S. Spanish-language...
22/07/2026
The Rest Is Football, hosted by Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Micah Richards, ...
22/07/2026
Sports Studio has announced a partnership with TheSoul Group to distribute Free ...
22/07/2026
Daktronics has concluded its 2026 High School Video Summit, a two-day hybrid event combining virtual sessions with hands-on host school visits across the countr...
22/07/2026
FOR-A America will exhibit at the MMCA Show in Pensacola, Florida (July 21-24), marking the company's first appearance at the house of worship AV event. FOR...
22/07/2026
The New York Yankees have selected Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) to connect Ya...
22/07/2026
Calrec will exhibit at IBC 2026 (Stand 8.C47) with demonstrations of its IP-native audio ecosystem built around the Argo console range, and will announce two ne...
22/07/2026
Solid State Logic has announced the appointment of Algam EKO as its distributor for SSL large format consoles in Italy, covering the Live, Broadcast, and Studio...
22/07/2026
FloSports has announced the launch of the FloSports Channel, a free ad-supported streaming channel premiering on Prime Video in the U.S. on July 21. The channel...
22/07/2026
Banana Ball TV (BTV), the broadcast operation of the Savannah Bananas, has insta...
22/07/2026
SiriusXM and Audacy have announced an agreement bringing 42 Audacy sports, news, and talk stations from 29 U.S. markets to SiriusXM. Twenty-three Audacy sports ...
22/07/2026
The collaboration produced more than 500 short-form videos across four cities th...
22/07/2026
At 2,600 sq. ft., the new home of digital content houses a main studio, podcast space, and an auxiliary control room
NFL franchises are accelerating their prod...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Proven managed IP solution helps broadcasters confidently navigate the future of broadcast distribution
LTN announces it has completed successful satellite-to-...
22/07/2026
Today, Chaos announced V-Ray 7, update 4, eliminating the need for asset conversions and tool switching, which slow down media and entertainment pipelines. Arti...
22/07/2026
An AI playground for the Project Indigo camera app
Marc Levoy July 22, 2026
0 Comments
At left is the user interface of our Playground, running on an ...
22/07/2026
Custom Consoles announces the completion of a large technical furniture project for Radio T l vision Suisse (RTS) at the networks recently inaugurated productio...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Culver City, CA, July 21, 2026 3D streaming infrastructure provider Miris today announced glTF intake, including the binary .glb form, to its spatial streamin...
22/07/2026
Documentary Lo Invisible Captured with Blackmagic PYXIS 6K
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
Camera's versatile design allowed filmmakers to c...
22/07/2026
AAF Bridge converts AAF and XML Timelines to Ableton Live - and back
Jerome Gardier July 21, 2026
0 Comments
A two-way converter for macOS and Windows...
22/07/2026
From Class to Concert: Explore a Student-Led Production of David Bowies Work Thr...
22/07/2026
NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang today visited the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, to commission an NVIDIA DGX GB300 system - bringing one...
22/07/2026
Before a healthcare robot can be useful in the real world, it has to learn how the physical world pushes back. Anatomy varies. Instruments bend, press, slip and...
21/07/2026
With winners Spain having already paraded the World Cup trophy through Madrid in front of millions of fans and the dust now settling on an epic tournament of th...
21/07/2026
In a time of disarray in regional sports broadcasting, the league will provide c...
21/07/2026
When NEP designed one of its largest recurring mobile production unit fleets for PGA TOUR
coverage, the leading media services provider faced a familiar challe...
21/07/2026
Warner Bros. Discovery's unbroken lead is interrupted as sports and live mus...
21/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/07/2026
Across the TV and streaming ecosystem, industry players face mounting pressure to do more with less. They must simplify operations, protect premium content and ...
21/07/2026
Tuxera, a leading prover of quality-assured file systems and networking technologies, is bringing its latest advances in connectivity performance to the media w...
21/07/2026
COW Jobs: Apple Motion Expert for Custom FCP Rigged Graphics Package
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
HIRING: Apple Motion Expert for Custom FCP ...
21/07/2026
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, will use its presence at IBC2026 (stand 7.A01, Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September) to...
21/07/2026
Calrec will be located in Hall 8, on Stand C47
Beyond bigger
For years, broadcast facilities were built around one assumption: provision for the biggest pro...
Live from the 2023 Ryder Cup: Sky Sports Virtual Studio in UK Plays Big Role in Remote Production By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
