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.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
14/11/2026
Longtime MLB Network employee David Maybrown passed away Thursday at the age of 57. David joined MLB Network in 2009 shortly after its launch, beginning as an i...
14/11/2026
Modular innovators introduce two guitar-based products
ADDAC System's recently introduced Four String Series makes it possible to integrate physical str...
14/11/2026
Marcelo Dai's Live Session Captured with URSA Cine Immersive
Brie Clayton November 14, 2026
0 Comments
Artist takes viewers on an immersive journe...
14/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
14/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
14/11/2026
Newest Lenses, Horizon Anamorphic Seminar & Guided Lens Character Experience Highlight Creative Possibilities
At the 2026 Toru CAMERIMAGE Film Festival, ZEISS...
14/11/2026
Sonnet Announces Black Friday Sale on Select Products
Brie Clayton November 14, 2026
0 Comments
WHAT: Sonnet Technologies is having a sale on a select...
14/11/2026
Berklee Alumni Shine at the 2026 Latin Grammy Awards This year's winners included songwriters, engineers, and performers who contributed to acclaimed reco...
13/11/2026
The UIM E1 Series wraps its third season this week with the Bombay Sapphire E1 Miami GP, Nov. 11-14, on Biscayne Bay at the Miami Seaplane Base on Watson Island...
13/11/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
13/11/2026
Singer-songwriter Benson Boone will headline entertainment for the Discover NHL Winter Classic between the Utah Mammoth and Colorado Avalanche at Rice-Eccles St...
13/11/2026
Blackmagic Design has announced the Blackmagic Ambisonic Microphone, a 7th order ambisonic microphone array that captures spatial audio for immersive video prod...
13/11/2026
SMPTE has announced that The Studio B&H and Riedel Communications will provide the video infrastructure and communications technology for the Solutions Hub at t...
13/11/2026
The Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) has announced the theme and program focus for the 2027 HPA Tech Retreat, which takes place Feb. 14-18, 2027, in La ...
13/11/2026
Football Manager 27 Touch is available on Apple Arcade starting today. The game ...
13/11/2026
MotoGP has announced a two-year media rights agreement with ESPN covering the Un...
13/11/2026
Apple Sports, the free iPhone app, has added the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to its lineup of supported sports, in time for Saturday's UFC 334. The...
13/11/2026
The NBA and Fanatics Studios, the joint venture between Fanatics and entertainme...
13/11/2026
ESPN held its annual EDGE Innovation Conference last night and offered up an ove...
13/11/2026
Regional sports network gives Ithaca College, SUNY Cortland students a platform to thrive
One of the biggest games in Division III college football will be pla...
13/11/2026
Studer-inspired 500-series PWM compressor unveiled
The HLabs range already includes a couple of Studer-inspired offerings in the form of the PRE169 and EQ16...
13/11/2026
Download Now!
To view the white paper, please enter the following details:
--
First Name* First Name
Company*
Country* Please select your countryA...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Blue Lucy, the workflow orchestration and integration platform for broadcasters, rights owners and localisation companies, today announced an integration with c...
13/11/2026
Krotos announces Black Friday offers on Studio Pro and Studio Max
Brie Clayton November 12, 2026
0 Comments
First-year annual plans start at US$195.99...
13/11/2026
Blackmagic Design Announces Blackmagic Ambisonic Microphone
Brie Clayton November 12, 2026
0 Comments
New 7th order ambisonic microphone with 108 MEMS...
13/11/2026
Meet the Berklee Student Setting Planetary Motion to Music With his compositional platform SoniKosmos, Javier Roqueni aims to make the universe the ultimate i...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , er...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , er...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Amagi, the media industry cloud company, today announced a partnership with Golden Times Media Technology (stock code 920021.BJ), a Beijing-based media and tech...
13/11/2026
CGI (TSX: GIB.A) (NYSE: GIB), one of the largest independent IT and business consulting services firms in the world, together with its Malaysian partner, Cedar ...
13/11/2026
SMPTE, the home for media professionals, technologists and engineers, today announced that The Studio B&H and Riedel Communications will provide the video infra...
13/11/2026
iWedia, a global leader in connected TV software solutions, will present its software-first approach to DRAM optimization at Android TV APAC Summit 2026 in Bang...
13/11/2026
Beginning today, November 13, Apple HomeView is available for purchase at Apple Store locations, on the Apple Store online, and in the Apple Store app in select...
13/11/2026
From pediatric research to smart hospitals, AI is helping care teams spend less time on routine tasks and more time with patients.
Health systems and startups...
12/11/2026
Industry leaders examine how Dynamic Media Facility, Media eXchange Layer, and c...
12/11/2026
The junior Tar Heel is embracing the technical and creative challenges of live production while emerging as a leader and mentor in the control room...
12/11/2026
Gracenote, Nielsen's content intelligence business, has released its fifth a...
Live from the 2023 Ryder Cup: Sky Sports Virtual Studio in UK Plays Big Role in Remote Production By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
