Legends Behind the Lens: Pat Sullivan The former NFL GM became one of sports television productions most impactful builders By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Thursday, May 21, 2020 - 12:00 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The story of American sports television is engrained in the history of this nation, rising on the achievements of countless incredible men and women who never once appeared on our screens. During this pause in live sports, SVG is proud to present a celebration of this great industry. Legends Behind the Lens is a look at how we got here seen through the people who willed it to be. Each weekday, we will share with you the story of a person whose impact on the sports-television industry is indelible.
Legends Behind the Lens is presented in association with the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame and the SVG Sports Broadcasting Fund. In these trying times - with so many video-production professionals out of work - we hope that you will consider (if you are able) donating to the Sports Broadcasting Fund. Do so by visiting sportsbroadcastfund.org.
___________________________
By Ken Kerschbaumer
When it comes to careers in the sports industry, it is safe to say that few people have worked in as many aspects of the business as Pat Sullivan, president and founder of Game Creek Video, a company that, over the past 20 years, has become one of the industry's leading production-services providers and innovators.
To begin with, his father, Billy, was the founder of the New England Patriots (then the Boston Patriots), and Sullivan was a ballboy for the first team. After graduating from Boston College in 1976, he actually reported for work at Schaefer Stadium without his father's even knowing he was going to work there.
I showed up at the stadium manager's office, and the manager handed me a broom and rake and told me to go clean up the stadium, recalls Sullivan. And, when my dad asked me what he was having me do, I said I was cleaning the stadium, the offices, and learning how to run the sewage plant.
In 1979, after spending two years managing the stadium, Sullivan became the team's assistant general manager and, in 1983, was promoted to GM, a role he held for seven years during which the Patriots made it to Super Bowl XX.
It was a great experience, he recalls. We had some really special people.
In 1990, Sullivan left his post as Patriots GM and began looking for something new to do, knowing only that he really did not enjoy working for other people. It was then that he got his first taste of the remote-production business when Dick Dean, owner of NCP, approached him about financially backing construction of a truck to be used by MSG for New York Yankees baseball coverage. The 10-year contract was unprecedented in the sports-TV business and set a template for future TV carriage deals.
Sullivan, however, was not quite sold on remote production as a career path and spent a year at the Christian Science Monitor Channel working as on-air talent. But, while there, he had a chance to work alongside the likes of Dave Mazza (now with NBC Sports) and Paul Puccio (now with CBS).
I was working with really brilliant people and found myself gravitating towards the technical side, he says. I was fascinated by what they were doing.
The real opportunity occurred in 1993 when he acquired two production units from Sure Shot as well as a small team to get Game Creek Video up and running.
It was really a matter of building a team of people that had credibility in their fields, he explains. Then we went aggressively after engineering with people like Paul Bonar, Mike Copeland, and Jason Taubman.
From the very beginning of Game Creek Video's existence, Sullivan has placed a great deal of value on having a strong team, a philosophy he inherited from his father.
When I started, my dad said to surround myself with really smart people, and I have been fortunate enough to do that in some key spots, he says. It's not just engineering. It's also about having the right people to drive the trucks, the administration of the company, and making sure we have credibility with bank partners.
Game Creek Video's growth over the years has been highlighted by several key moments, according to Sullivan.
First was the construction of Intrepid in 2000, a unit capable of handling big shows and tapped by ESPN to handle the network's final year of NASCAR coverage.
That same year, the YES Network came down the pike and they gave us the contract, which was a huge win, says Sullivan.
Fox Sports EVP, Operations, Ed Delaney was with the YES Network at the time and forged a strong relationship with both Sullivan and Game Creek Video's team over the years.
Game Creek has been the mobile-facility provider for the YES Network since its launch in 2002, Delaney says. Pat underpromised and overdelivered from day one, providing superior facilities that transitioned YES to HD.
The 2007 All-Star Game in San Francisco also proved a major moment in the growth of Game Creek Video. Its Southern Cross production unit was on hand for MLB International's host-feed production, and the unit's massive routing-switcher core came in handy when a 30-minute pregame element featuring the 50 greatest players of all time was produced out of Southern Cross.
We assured them that we could pull it off. The MLB guys got out a half hour before air, and, at the push of a button, the monitor wall switched over for the pregame show, recalls Sullivan. And then, after the pregame, a button was pushed, and the reverse happened. Everyone went Wow,' as they had never seen anything like that.
Jerry Steinberg, former SVP of field operations for Fox Sports and fellow Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame inductee, recalls seeing Game Creek's Southern
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
23/07/2026
Screen Australia announces new national documentary accelerator program 23 July 2026
Screen Australia has today announced the Above the Line Documentary Accel...
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
Library now available in Engine Player
Another of Eduardo Tarilonte's popular sample libraries has just been moved over to Engine Audio's Engine Pla...
22/07/2026
All-in-one mic & DSP interface overhauled
Cloudvocal have just refreshed the design of their all-in-one mic, audio interface and DSP processor, introducing ...
22/07/2026
The final boss of the lost dual-op-amp circuit
Electro-Harmonix have just introduced the Deluxe Big Muff Pi 2, which they say offers their latest take on t...
22/07/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
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
A poisoned spy, a secret war, and a small English city contaminated by a deadly chemical weapon. Available on Sky Documentaries from 4 AugustWednesday 22 July 2...
22/07/2026
Audio at Parity: Comscore Launches Transcript-Level Targeting and Measurement wi...
22/07/2026
Arvato Systems and Lobster Enter into a Partnership and Combine the Integration Platform and Managed Services
Flexible integration solutions for cloud, hybrid...
22/07/2026
RT REPORTS NET SURPLUS OF 22.5 MILLION IN 2025...
22/07/2026
In the Opinion of the Censor airs Monday 27 July at 9.35pm on RT One and RT Player
In the Opinion of the Censor looks at how films for theatrical release wer...
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...
Legends Behind the Lens: Pat Sullivan The former NFL GM became one of sports television productions most impactful builders By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
