Live From the Ryder Cup: 2021 Production Is a Family Affair for Sky Sports and NBC Sports Collaboration will be key at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Thursday, September 23, 2021 - 2:08 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
After a year's delay, the 2021 Ryder Cup is set to begin Friday, with Team USA and Team Europe squaring off at Whistling Straits in Kohler, WI. It's the first Ryder Cup for which Sky Sports and NBC Sports are part of the same corporate family, and collaboration will play a big part.
Both units are very excited to be broadcasting it for the first time in three years and to be working together and talking together, says Jason Wessely, executive producer, Sky Sports Golf. Not only to make sensible efficiencies, sensible savings, and environmentally responsible savings but to pull resources so that the customer gets an enhanced experience, not a lesser experience. Collectively, we're stronger, and it's very exciting [to be] looking at the future of golf broadcasting as we work together with each other and with partners like the European Tour Productions and PGA of America.
The biggest area of collaboration will be around Golf Channel's Live From show, which has become a staple for golf fans, especially at the majors and events like the Ryder Cup.
We worked pretty hard to get Live From throughout the season onto the Sky platform because it's a nice product that has a continual news flow for the Sky customer, says Wessely. So we're going to join forces and throw to a Sky set and then go back and forth to the Live From Golf Channel set and give a complete, comprehensive show that throws back and forth between the two groups.
There has been a lot of work with Live From Coordinating Producer Matt Hegarty and his team, he adds, but we'll be able to have the American take and the European take on things, and, hopefully, over the next couple of days, we'll find a real good rhythm with a dovetailing effect between the two units. There is also a different stylistic difference that will be interesting to watch.
Sky Sports will have a studio presence at the first tee and a crew of 40 onsite at Whistling Straits.
The core of Sky's coverage for the competition will be the world feed, which will be produced by IMG and European Tour Productions. Telegenic's TWiz production trailer will serve as the broadcast hub onsite, housing commentary booths and technical facilities that include audio mixing and Simply Live operations.
It's a very clever truck that has been designed purposefully for Sky, Wessely points out. It's got office space, it's got a green room, it's got a commentary booth, it's got the sound mixing, and it's got the operation for the touchscreen.
TWiz historically has been used week in and week out for Sky's PGA TOUR coverage, but the pandemic put a pause on operations, which didn't restart until August for the Fed Ex Championship. Having it back in the operation will allow around 50 signals to be sent to Sky's production facility in Osterley Park outside London.
The workflow is split between the Telegenic truck onsite and two galleries at Sky that are essentially working throughout the week, explains Wessely. The main gallery will look after the main coverage Friday to Sunday, and a second gallery will look after Live From. That gallery is PCR 35, which will curate the Live From program and deliver it to transmission while Gallery 5 ends up being the content generator.
The two are working in tandem, he continues. One challenge is fitting into the various corporate workflows back home: we have just over 40 people working here at Whistling Straits, but, back home, we have as many as 150 people working at Sky Studios.
Sky Sports typically has a massive studio presence at the first tee, but, this year, that presence will be smaller, and studio operations will be located near the 18th green (Golf Channel will have its studio presence at the first tee).
Twenty minutes before the [competition starts] , says Wessely, we will go our separate ways from the Golf Channel, and our presenting team will be down at the first tee, alfresco-like standing on the grass. [Golfers] Nick Dougherty and Paul McGinley will be there, talking about the atmosphere as the crowds get loud. The viewer will feel as though they're in the heart of the action.
Once the action starts, the world feed will be at the center of the Sky offering, and the PGA TOUR Entertainment Group is filling in gaps created by the need to deploy as few people as possible. Four or five RF cameras will be key to the coverage, cut into the world feed, which will rely more than ever on NBC's coverage.
We are truly doing a joint world feed, says Wessely, so we'll need to know where NBC is going, when commercial pieces are coming in, etc. It will rely on very good communication between [Golf producer] Tommy Roy at NBC, ETP, and Sky.
In recent years, Sky has also embraced NCAM to deliver augmented-reality video captures of Team Europe golfers into the studio environments, and this year is no different. Players stand on a pedestal in a greenscreen environment, and a Trackman camera system rotates around them, capturing them from all angles.
Unless the camera moves, you don't get the 3D aspect to it, says Wessely. We will also use a Steadicam in our studios and a pan rail. The players get sort of beamed up into our studio, and we can put our presenter in there and make it look like the players are being transported into our studios.
Something new onsite this year are touchscreens that give the presenters more control over video highlights and other elements.
When you have the touch functionality, says Wessely, it's crucial that the
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
20/11/2025
CINCINNATI Oklahoma Community Television (OCT) has selected GatesAir and Triveni Digital as key technology partners in an ATSC 3.0 deployment that establishes a...
20/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has opened a wide-ranging inquiry into the relations between broadcast networks and their affiliates that could...
20/11/2025
NEW YORK Ad spend in the creator economy has more than doubled since 2021 from $13.9B to $29.5B in 2024 and that amount is projected to reach $37 billion in 202...
20/11/2025
Graduate Spotlight: Krysta Mirsik DePuy The educator from Hackettstown, New Jersey, shares how it took her 11 years to find the right graduate program for her...
20/11/2025
LONDON The winners of the Rise Awards 2025, which recognize women and companies whose achievements have stood out in the media technology industry, have been an...
20/11/2025
SANTA MONICA & NEW YORK Lionsgate's Worldwide Television Distribution Group and Debmar-Mercury have launched MovieSphere Gold in more than 30 million homes....
20/11/2025
ALAMEDA, Calif. Clear-Com has introduced its four-channel HelixNet beltpack, a next-generation advancement of its widely used two-channel model, and anticipates...
20/11/2025
NEW PROVIDENCE, N.J. Streaming technology and services provider Kiswe has launched Kiswe Core, a next-generation cloud-based platform designed to simplify the s...
20/11/2025
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. Dolby Laboratories has signed on as an official signature partner of the Bay Area Host Committee (BAHC) for the 2026 Super Bowl and the we...
20/11/2025
STUTTGART, Germany 3 Screen Solutions (3SS) has announced that the Canadian multiservice operator Telus has launched its Telus TV+ entertainment platform on Sam...
20/11/2025
Major League Baseball has announced deals with ESPN, NBCUniversal and Netflix covering 2026-2028 that make ESPN the exclusive distributor for MLB.TV, put regula...
20/11/2025
Berklee Presents Holiday Extravaganza: Duke Ellingtons The Nutcracker Suite and ...
20/11/2025
It's the Late Late Toy Show BIG BIG Ticket Giveaway day!
It's the Late ...
20/11/2025
Editor's note: This post is part of Into the Omniverse, a series focused on how developers, 3D practitioners and enterprises can transform their workflows u...
20/11/2025
The How To Gael pocast gals, comedian Chris Kent and quizzer Darragh Ennis drop by for the fifth episode of The 2 Johnnies Late Night Lock In
In the penultimat...
20/11/2025
Tonight on RT Prime Time, Marie Crowe on how a Reading School changed her son&#...
20/11/2025
The NVIDIA Blackwell RTX upgrade is nearing the finish line, letting GeForce NOW Ultimate members across the globe experience true next-generation cloud gaming ...
20/11/2025
Tanya Berger-Wolf's first computational biology project started as a bet wit...
19/11/2025
Sphere Sound Kicks Up Its Heels at Radio City Music HallUltra-immersive system from the singular Las Vegas venue is also ready for sportsBy Dan Daley, Audio Edi...
19/11/2025
The Future of Stadium and Arena Video Control Rooms: Tech Leaders Talk 4K, IP, a...
19/11/2025
One Year at Intuit Dome: Walking Through the Stunning Arena's Advanced Video...
19/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: IMG's Francois Westcombe Goes Inside IMG's Annual Digital ...
19/11/2025
Inside Brighton & Hove Albion's fan-first media machine By George Bevir
Tuesday, November 18, 2025 - 10:10
Print This Story
Brighton & Hove Albion'...
19/11/2025
Rock Chalk Rebuild, Part 1: Kansas Athletics Brings New Production Power to Rebu...
19/11/2025
Rock Chalk Rebuild, Part 2: A Pro's Guide to Kansas Athletics' New Video...
19/11/2025
MLB Media Rights Shakeup: NBC Inks Three-Year Deal for Sunday Night Baseball, Pe...
19/11/2025
Rohan Parashuram Kanawade attends the premiere of Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival at Egyptian Theatre on January 26, 2025, in Pa...
19/11/2025
Awards season is heating up, and the International Documentary Association just ...
19/11/2025
Aerojet Rocketdyne President Ken Bedingfield and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders were joined by state and local officials to celebrate the groundbreaking o...
19/11/2025
L3Harris and PentenAmio formalise their teaming agreement at MilCIS 2025, streng...
19/11/2025
Calrec gives Phoenix Broadcast Solutions its full support in strategic multi-year enterprise partnership New Singapore OB company invests in Calrec technology f...
19/11/2025
October brings a larger audience in front of TV screens. The cooler autumn weather and the continuation of new programming schedules brought increases in both t...
19/11/2025
IRVING, Texas Nexstar Media Group and Tegna filed applications on Nov. 18 with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeking its consent to transfer broad...
19/11/2025
Vitec has acquired Datapath, a developer of real-time video processing for large-scale video walls, AVoIP content distribution and KVM control in mission-critic...
19/11/2025
NEVADA CITY, Calif. Telestream has introduced ARGUS Version 2.3, which introduces Live Look, a feature that lets operators inspect live and on-demand streams vi...
19/11/2025
STAMFORD, Conn. and NEW YORK Charter Communications, Inc. has announced a major deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS) that establishes AWS as one of Charters stra...
19/11/2025
TOKYO Atomos has announced a major firmware update that brings integrated camera control to the Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX its new CFexpress-based monitor-recor...
19/11/2025
Berklee's Signature Series Reimagines the Musical and Visual Artistry of Col...
19/11/2025
PlayBox Neo departed the NAB Show New York 2025 on a high note. The company's all-new PlayBox Neo Suite made a splash on the show floor, drawing strong inte...
19/11/2025
AAVBR (American Audio Visual Baton Rouge), a leading full-service event production company serving Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region, has enhanced its product...
19/11/2025
In its mission to deliver live event services combining advanced engineering with a creative approach to captivating live sports and entertainment experiences, ...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK Short-form vertical video has exploded across platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, but a new survey commissioned by Media.net, a provider of c...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK YES Network, the regional sports network home of the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Nets, and CAMB.AI have struck a partnership they said will leverage ...
19/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has issued detailed guidance on filings that were disrupted by the government shutdown. While many of those fil...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK The popularity of NFL games is largely responsible for continued seasonal momentum in TV viewership into October (measured Sept. 29-Oct. 26), according...
19/11/2025
DirecTV has announced that its MyFree DirecTV streaming service has added seven new channels. Those include four sports services, NBA FAST, Red Bull TV, DAZN Ri...
19/11/2025
SURREY, U.K. Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) has launched Flair Bridge, a compact device that transforms how operators control the company's motion-contr...
19/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission, which is continuing to rapidly ramp up its operations after the end of the federal government shutdown, has se...
Live From the Ryder Cup: 2021 Production Is a Family Affair for Sky Sports and NBC Sports Collaboration will be key at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
