Washington, D.C. 10 July 2003 – Major League Baseball fans in over 200 countries will be watching the upcoming All-Star Game the same way they’ve been tuning in to regular season games; via Intelsat’s Occasional Video Solutions (OVS) network.
Major League Baseball International, which coordinates network planning and broadcast of over 40 MLB games per week, chose all Intelsat-operated capacity to broadcast the upcoming All-Star Game, in addition to regular season games, to viewers worldwide. Using four Intelsat satellites, the 901 at 342ºE, 707 at 359ºE, 805 at 304.5ºE and 701 at 180ºE, the games will be broadcast from North America to Europe, Latin America and Asia, respectively. Intelsat picks up the signals via its major video switch interconnects, transports them by fiber to its Riverside and Fuchsstadt teleports, and uplinks the games to Intelsat satellites for transmission to broadcast receive sites around the world. BT Broadcast Services is providing Major League Baseball with Intelsat capacity for the Asian distribution, which includes over seven games per week to Asian rights holders.
‘Using our state-of-the-art OVS network for this type of high value sports content is perfect for the special event distribution marketplace and customers like Major League Baseball,’ said Ramu Potarazu, Chief Operating Officer, Intelsat Ltd. ‘Customers are taking note of Intelsat’s commitment to this service, not only because the reliability of our ground network and satellites are unmatched by any other provider, but also for the ease and flexibility of working with our staff. Our understanding of the video industry is thorough, since we’ve been providing video services for almost 40 years, and will benefit our customers looking for easy end-to-end solutions.’
Russell Gabay, Executive Producer, Major League Baseball International, stated, ‘We needed to find one provider with exceptional customer service that could distribute our content globally over a reliable end-to-end network. Intelsat’s transmissions of the first half of the regular season have been outstanding, so we knew that trusting their expertise to carry an important event like the All-Star game would be a smart decision on our part.’
The 74th annual All-Star Game will be played at U.S. Cellular Field on 15 July at 8:00 p.m. EST. Intelsat’s global terrestrial end-to-end infrastructure, which includes teleports in California, Maryland, Germany and Hong Kong as well as fiber interconnected Points of Presence in Los Angeles, New York, Frankfurt and London, has been in place and providing services to customers for over a year.
For further information please contact:
Jodi Katz
Jodi.katz@intelsat.com
+1 202 361 7105 (mobile)
Susan Gordon
Susan.gordon@intelsat.com
+1 202 944 6890