NEP Australia’s largest outside broadcast (OB) of 2015 has just successfully wrapped: the biennial Presidents Cup golf tournament from Korea.

NEP Australia’s largest outside broadcast (OB) of 2015 has just successfully wrapped: the biennial Presidents Cup golf tournament from Korea.

NEP Australia facilitated four days (8-11 October) of gripping PGA action from Jack Nicklaus Golf Club in Incheon on behalf of the host broadcaster, NBC Sports Group, and unilateral broadcast clients PGA TOUR, Golf Channel, Jupiter TV Japan, Chinese Golf Network and Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) South Korea.

The Presidents Cup tournament has been held outside the United States on five occasions and NEP Australia (formerly Global Television) has facilitated two of them, delivering Melbourne in 2011 and now Korea.

38 tonnes of broadcast technical equipment were shipped to Incheon via sea and air from Sydney, and the NEP team laid more than 42 kilometres of cabling and set up the infrastructure to support this massive international broadcast.A total of 54 high definition cameras captured every shot. 

NEP also provided flyaway kits, including its large format HDP1, to accommodate the broadcast requirements of NBC Sports and its unilateral broadcast partners.

Rounding off a turnkey broadcast solution for NBC, NEP supplied and delivered radio frequency (RF) camera, graphics and edit workflow packages.

27 NEP broadcast technical experts travelled to Incheon for the event, supported by more than 200 NBC crew. 

NBC Coordinating Producer Tom Roy said: “NEPA has done a wonderful job providing the facilities for our broadcast. With their extensive planning and on-site expertise we have utilised their resources in our production to showcase one of golf’s most prestigious global events.”

NEP Project Director Andrew Quinn said: “It’s a privilege for NEP Australia to be asked by NBC to be involved again in the broadcast of the 2015 Presidents Cup following a successful Melbourne event in 2011. 

“Being awarded the Korea project reinforces how NEP Australia is just as capable of supplying large flyaway equipment-based broadcast solutions as we are at supplying truck-based solutions. 

“These large scale events challenge our industry’s technical delivery capabilities and the NEP Australia team is always up to the task of delivering world class solutions on behalf of NBC.”

The 2015 Presidents Cup was televised to a potential worldwide audience of 1 billion viewers and was broadcast in Australia by the Nine Network and FOX Sports.

The Presidents Cup is among the most anticipated and keenly followed events on the PGA TOUR. Every two years 24 top players – 12 from the United States and 12 from around the world, excluding the UK and Europe – engage in four days of team match-play competition. In 2015, the eleventh Presidents Cup, Nick Price captained the International team and Jay Haas the United States team. 

Key project statistics include:

• 38 tonnes of equipment shipped from Australia
• 42 km of course cabling
• 27-person NEP Australia engineering team
• 54 cameras including unilaterals
• New Sony 4ME MVS 8000x switcher
• New Imagine 504 X 824 multi format router
• VSM control system
• Fleet of Lawo Mc2 56 and Mc2 66 audio desks
• Riedel 192 x 192 comms matrix
• 12 EVS XT3 8 channel