BMG provides production workflow for The Pro Tour golf broadcasts

Broadcast Management Group provided creative, live production, network operations and distribution services for the inaugural broadcast season of The Pro Tour, a professional golf tour featuring retired athletes from leagues including the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL.

The Pro Tour selected BMG to develop and operate an end-to-end production workflow for its first live broadcasts. Competitors on the tour include John Elway, Tony Romo, John Smoltz, Vince Carter, Ray Allen and JR Smith.

BMG has produced and distributed three tournaments during the tour’s first season, with semifinal and final competitions scheduled for August and September.

“Working with Broadcast Management Group has been amazing. The technology, coverage, and professionalism have been beyond our expectations. We’re excited to have them as partners as we continue building The Pro Tour and bringing this competition to audiences nationwide,” Tim Wilbanks, co-founder and CEO of The Pro Tour, said.

BMG’s creative services, live sports production, network operations center and distribution teams supported the tour through show development, graphics, live production, transmission, media management and final distribution.

The company said it provided a single production team responsible for creative services, live production, crewing, engineering, transmission, media asset management, master control and distribution.

“The Pro Tour presented an opportunity to design a broadcast ecosystem from the ground up,” Kathy Samuels, director of creative services at BMG, said. “By bringing together creative services, live production, engineering, and distribution into one workflow, we created a scalable model that supports the tour today and can grow alongside it in the future.”

For each event, BMG designed a custom REMI production workflow to support multi-day tournaments with five hours of live coverage per day. The workflow used a hybrid model combining on-site resources, BMG’s NOC and decentralized crew positions.

BMG used LiveU LU800 LIQ bonded cellular transmission systems with LiveU’s AI-powered Smart Switching technology, with Starlink providing redundant connectivity. Camera feeds, including drone coverage, were transmitted to BMG’s NOC, where network conditions were monitored and optimized across multiple cellular networks.

“Live golf presents unique challenges because of the size of the playing field, the continuously changing storyline, and that no two courses are the same,” Graham Taylor, executive producer of live sports at BMG, said. “Our goal was to create a production model that could travel with the tour, adapt to each venue, and scale as the league grows. By combining wireless acquisition, LiveU connectivity, centralized REMI production, and redundant transmission paths, we built a workflow that delivers the reliability of a traditional broadcast while providing the flexibility needed to support a multi-venue golf series.”

From the NOC, BMG centralized live switching, graphics, audio mixing, video shading, media asset management, master control and pop-up channel distribution.