Radio brings golf to life for fans onsite and for the local community at large with the help of Comrex
The USGA’s 124th US Open® held at Pinehurst #2 on June 13-16, 2024 was a massive event which featured the world’s top golfers and approximately 250,000 fans. This year’s tournament pulled in a record number of viewers, and golf is currently at its highest level of popularity since the 2001 “Tiger Bump”.
Fan enthusiasm is at a high, and so there’s tremendous demand for timely, engaging, and comprehensive content. This year, some sports broadcasters satisfied the demand by going live and local – delivering exciting real-time programming from Pinehurst to listeners both in the community and on site.
Live & Local: Delivering Content to Pinehurst-Southern Pines Area
WIOZ-FM (Star 102.5 FM), a Muirfield Broadcasting station, is located in Southern Pines, NC – right next door to Pinehurst Resort, the site of the 2024 U.S Open. Because of its location, Star 102.5 planned an extended 7-day remote to cover the duration of the tournament. While it was a national event, the US Open this year was also uniquely local to WIOZ listeners. The community normally has a combined population of 35,000 people.
“The broadcast was live, and it was multicast,” said Rich Rushforth, Operations Manager for WHOZ and WIOZ. “We needed to have a serious impact on radio, but also on social media. Our connection had to be reliable, our audio had to be high-quality, and we needed to be able to be versatile.”
To make their content stand out, Rushforth wanted to be able to get coverage of the event from multiple locations. “Our remote set-up couldn’t be stationary and clunky and big,” he said. “We needed to be able to use our codec on the go – on the driving range, in the interview rooms, anywhere the golfers were.”
Rushforth chose ACCESS NX for their remote codec solution because of its portability. “It was easily able to connect to available Wi-Fi, and the long-lasting internal battery source was incredible – there were times when I held it in one hand for multiple hours as I walked around the event.” ACCESS NX and its optional mixer gave Rushforth 6 mic/line inputs and headphone outputs, plus fully adjustable settings to work with. “It was unbelievably convenient,” he said.
“In previous championships, we could send someone down to the greens with a field recorder, and then if we had time, come up with a very delayed transfer,” said Rushforth. “But it was nothing like being able to hold the Comrex in your hand, walk down, and speak to a player right as they’re walking away from the practice range. I could ask questions about the landscape and their strategies, and get a spontaneous natural answer.”
“The ability to get those interviews live is leaps and bounds ahead of having to record it,” said Rushforth. “With a recording, by the time you load it, edit it, send it, find a slot for it, and intro it, the moment is over – it happened half an hour ago, and no one cares anymore. But when you can ask a real time question, it’s immediately relevant and worth listening to.”
The sturdiness of ACCESS NX was a major factor in choosing Comrex for Rushforth. “You can try to bend it, you can try to break it, but you’re not going to succeed,” he said. “It’s not just user friendly – it’s talent friendly. Even non-technical folks can use it.”
And Comrex tech support added an additional layer of trust. “When I call Comrex, I get a person who is knowledgeable, confident, and calm. I know they’ll be able to help.”
“ACCESS NX is beyond better,” said Rushforth. “I don’t know how I’d improve it.”
Photos courtesy of Chris Crump featuring Rich Rushforth, Operations Manager for Muirfield Broadcasting, Inc (WIOZ-AM, WIOZ-FM, WYBE-TV).
Nationwide & Hyper-Local: Distributing Audio on a Large Scale and Creating a Customized Real-Time Experience for Fan Engagement
SiriusXM Satellite Radio was the exclusive national audio broadcaster for the 124th US Open Championship, and they delivered over 40 hours of live coverage across all four days of Championship play to their listeners. This year, they partnered with American Express® to provide an elevated experience to fans attending the event. Amex Card Members could pick up a complimentary Amex Radio to tune into a specialized version of the SiriusXM broadcast during the Championship rounds.
“We provided some cool custom content for our onsite listeners,” said Kenny Marion, Technical Director for Live Sports Radio (LSR), who worked behind the scenes to bring the Amex activation to life. “For example, listeners would hear about special promotions like concessions sales, or other events happening around the course. They’d also get an hour of extra coverage every day, as well as customized play-by-play commentary.”
Live Sports Radio specializes in distributing onsite radio content to event attendees. Using custom branded earpieces that they manufacture, LSR routes audio to listeners on site, which allows them to hear live play-by-play or commentary with minimal delay. This year at the US Open®, LSR distributed approximately 35,000 Amex Radio earpieces. To deliver the specialized Amex Radio content to those listeners, LSR set up a local FM transmitter that functioned as a mini radio station, and used that to broadcast. They then connected to the SiriusXM studio with a Comrex BRIC-Link III, which functioned as a point-to-point STL.
“Before we got a Comrex, we used to beg TV networks to let us use their fiber networks,” said Marion. “While it worked, it was like living on the edge – we were relying on a lot of factors that we didn’t have control over.” BRIC-Link III enabled them to cut out all those potential pitfalls. “Now, we just ask for an internet connection, plug in our Comrex unit and connect it to our transmitter, and then we’re receiving real time audio from the Sirius studio and sending it out to our listeners.”
“Once I learned about Comrex, I noticed they were everywhere,” said Marion. “It became clear to me that it was the gold standard. Seeing that all these people I trust in the industry trust Comrex, it was easy for me to do the same.”
After spending years cobbling together complex audio pathways in the field, Marion was relieved to have a reliable point-to-point solution. “They just work,” he said of BRIC-Link III. “The dependability of [BRIC-Link] is everything to me. I’ve never had a unit fail.”
“Having a reliable product for these live events is a massive stress reliever for me. I can just have it configured, and know it’s going to work. It lets me think about other things – I can focus elsewhere and not have to worry about our most important audio connection.”
Photos courtesy of Daryl Doss, Contract Engineer for SiriusXM.
To make great live programming, it’s crucial to have reliable solutions you can trust. Comrex audio codecs are the industry gold standard – try one yourself to learn why!
