Behind the Scenes

Had the opportunity to visit an ex-client of mine yesterday. Well, ex as of last week. This company is in the business of mobile television production. In fact, if you watch CBS broadcasts of NFL games, especially high definition broadcasts, you've likely seen their work.

This week, they are responsible for coverage of holes 1 through 9 at the PGA Championship at Medinah. I had the opportunity to go see how this all works. While my pass gave me full access to the grounds, most of my time was spent here:



To cover an event like baseball or football, you only need 1 truck. Sometimes they actually use two trucks because the cameras are part of the truck and the extra weight would exceed allowable semi-trailer weights for highway travel.

To cover golf, they use about 8 trucks. That's because there are too many cameras for one truck to handle all the feeds. It was fascinating to see that only about 25% of what's broadcast actually goes out live. They queue up several shots on what are essentially TIVOs on steroids and then broadcast them to the public. At home, it all appears seamless, and live.

The other amazing thing at the PGA was the tent setup to sell memorabilia. It was enormous. And the prices? You need a top 5 finish to afford a shirt. My host and I walked over to the Nike area to look at their shirts. There were four hung behind their counter. The Nike lady pointed out to us that this was Tiger Woods' wardrobe for each day of the tournament (Sunday's shirt was already sold out). I said to her, "If they pay you $30 million a year, I guess they can tell you what to wear for a weekend."

"Weekend?" she replied. "I can tell you what he's wearing for the Masters next year."

In terms of the actual golf, I saw John Daly and Vijay Singh hole out at 2 and tee off on three. That about covered my interest. I think I'm done with golf for a while. I've always thought that, if the point of golf is to hit the ball as few times as possible, why even play?

But I'd love to spend a day in that truck during an NFL game.