Live From THE PLAYERS: PGA TOUR World Feed Is Set To Wow International Fans, Rightsholders The world feed will feature dedicated TOUR graphics and announcers By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Wednesday, March 12, 2025 - 6:03 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Early this year, the PGA TOUR officially opened its PGA TOUR Studios, a massive production facility located next to TPC Sawgrass, the legendary course that is home to THE PLAYERS tournament this week. Today marks a new era in PGA TOUR world-feed production: the new facility will be producing a world feed that not only has its own graphics look but offers much more golf for international rightsholders.
PGA TOUR's Kate Sharpe (left) and Greg Hopfe in the production-control room that will provide a next-level world feed
The PGA TOUR has offered an enhanced international feed (EIF) for its events for more than 25 years, producing it from the PGA TOUR production facility at the World Golf Village in St. Augustine, FL, about 22 miles from the organization's new studio. The EIF basically took the NBC Sports or CBS Sports programming feed and delivered it to viewers, complete with the respective broadcaster's announcers and graphics. The only difference between the domestic and international feeds was that, when the broadcaster would go to break or a domestic-related promo, the international feed would fill the break with other content and PGA TOUR announcers.
Now, in PGA TOUR Studios' new 165,000-sq.-ft. facility, Production Control Room 1B will be the week-in/week-out home of a team of around 30, producing a world feed that will better meet the needs of international rightsholders and fans.
PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monaghan weighs in on the importance of that capability to the future of the TOUR: For the first time, we will be able to customize our broadcasts for markets around the world. As the game and our membership becomes increasingly global, we will now be able to present the PGA TOUR to fans everywhere, from Seoul to Stockholm, in a more localized and relevant way.
According to PGA TOUR SVP/Executive Producer Greg Hopfe, the TOUR expects to use the domestic feed for about 70% of the coverage at THE PLAYERS. However, NBC has set up the Grass Valley Kayenne switcher in the TOUR production truck onsite to send a secondary signal that has PGA TOUR wipes instead of Peacock wipes, providing international viewers a much more consistent and cohesive world feed.
We don't get [NBC] graphics, he notes, but we get their technology, like tracing, and we have our own announcers. Each week, the PGA TOUR team will feature a host, two analysts, and an on-course reporter from a group of more than 30 (this week's talent includes John Swantek, Craig Perks, Billy Kratzert, and Colin Swatton).
The world feed will also have some of its own cameras to complement what comes in from NBC and give the world-feed team more looks. We don't need to throw a ton more resources at it, says Hopfe. We'll have one camera at the 17th and 18th to be with the finishing groups and then another four that can be with international groups that we don't think will get much domestic coverage.
Using PGA TOUR announcers for the entire broadcast gives the world-feed team the freedom to cut around the incoming NBC feed. The PGA TOUR production has four Hawk-Eye replay operators building clips for the show, and world-feed producer Steven Roth and director Emmett Loughran can hear the NBC production team and see NBC's preview and a multiviewer of NBC's replay options.
It allows us to show a lot more international players, adds Hopfe. If NBC wants to show an American player who is seven shots back, we can go in and show something else that best meets the needs of our international rightsholders.
To PGA TOUR VP, Broadcast Technology, Mike Raimondo, the biggest challenge was setting up NBC and CBS with the new in-house graphics packages. We had to make sure that the Shotlink data properly populated the new graphics package, and that took some time. Other than bringing in more Hawk-Eye operators so we can bring in more content, it has been fairly straightforward.
PGA TOUR SVP, International Media, Kate Sharp notes that the international players move the needle for rights partners as well as for sponsors and international fans.
A test at the Genesis Open this year proved just how improved the world feed is going to be. The international feed has four two-minute breaks per hour. For the Genesis Open, that translated into showing 600 shots during the four hours of final-round coverage, versus 350 shots on the domestic feed.
And we had more shots of the internationals, like 27 shots of Hideki Matsuyama, compared to two shots, and 78 shots of Ludvig berg, Sharp adds. We can tailor it to what we know the international audience is going to want to see. Yes, we're still going to do the storyline of the tournament and the top guys, but we can also show the guys that we want to, and that will help not just our business partners but all of our international fans.
This weekend marks step one in what is going to be the transformation of the world feed in the coming years. The new PGA TOUR Studios facility has additional control-room and production areas that could offer more-regionalized feeds for different areas of the world, better serving the needs of sponsors and rightsholders alike.
Now that we have more operational control, we can do what we want with it, says Sharpe. This is not just a better product; it is a better way to message our tournaments and our brand to our international fans. We think it will create more value and gives our partners and potential partners more opportunities to also engage with us.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Live From THE PLAYERS: PGA TOUR World Feed Is Set To Wow International Fans, Rightsholders The world feed will feature dedicated TOUR graphics and announcers By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
