Work · Case study
T2 on Samsung TV+ and live tennis through COVID
Operations behind the T2 FAST channel launch on Samsung TV+, multi-cam multi-court tournament live coverage, and the remote-cameras-only production model that kept tennis on the air when on-site crews couldn't travel.
Overview
Two parallel tracks at Tennis Channel that ended up reinforcing each other. T2 launched as a 24/7 FAST channel on Samsung TV+ in the US, and the live event operation grew up around it to handle tournament coverage when traditional on-site production wasn't possible. Together they were the proof point that small teams plus cloud infrastructure could handle live sports at scale.
The problem
T2 needed to be a real 24/7 channel, not a clip reel. That meant a programmed schedule of original and acquired content, packaged correctly for FAST, with metadata clean enough to land on Samsung TV+ and not embarrass the brand on a connected TV grid.
At the same time, COVID landed in the middle of tennis season. The standard model of flying crews to tournaments and running on-site production went away. The choice was either go off the air or rebuild how live tennis got produced.
Context
Tennis Channel had real brand expectations: fans noticed when feeds dropped, when metadata was wrong, when the broadcast looked different from the linear network. Samsung TV+ had its own quality bar for premium live sports. The internal team was small. The team running tournaments was used to being on the road.
For T2 specifically, the audience expected linear behavior. They wanted to flip to the channel and see something they'd watch, not a buffering screen or a placeholder slate.
My role
I owned the operational backbone for both:
- Built the T2 content workflow: live studio show from the network operations center into cloud master-control, then to the cloud playout partner, then to Samsung TV+
- Built the parallel T2 VOD workflow: content creators uploaded via shared cloud storage, assets moved through S3 with metadata, then into cloud playout for the channel
- Owned the live event operations for tournaments using a cloud-master-control product that mixed and switched remote camera feeds
- Designed the multi-cam multi-court approach that let us run several matches simultaneously without a corresponding multiplication of staff
- Built the remote production model during COVID that kept tournaments on the air with cameras at venues and operators at home
- Did QA on every supported device for the T2 channel and coordinated launch readiness with the Samsung TV+ team
The T2 pipeline
Live studio
Network operations center production goes into the cloud master-control product, mixes and switches there, then hands off to the cloud playout partner for distribution.
VOD
Content creators produce VOD content, push to shared cloud storage, the metadata and media flow through S3, and cloud playout pulls assets into the 24/7 schedule.
Schedule
A programmed 24/7 schedule combining live windows when tournaments are running with the VOD library on either side.
Delivery
Single output feed into Samsung TV+ as the FAST distribution partner.
Multi-cam, multi-court, remote production
The live event side was where the operation got interesting. The cloud master-control product let a single operator switch and mix multiple incoming camera feeds from anywhere. We applied that to tournament coverage:
- Cameras at the venue, feeds back over contribution paths
- Cloud master-control receives, mixes, and switches
- An operator at home (or wherever) drives the production
- Up to four simultaneous matches feeding out as separate streams, so audiences could pick the court they cared about instead of waiting for a network director to cut to it
This was operationally novel at the time. Premium live sports on traditional infrastructure meant a truck, a crew, and a chase plane to the next venue. Cloud and remote production meant the work could happen with a fraction of that footprint.
Product decisions and trade-offs
- Cloud master-control over an on-prem solution. Higher per-event cost in dollars, much lower in headcount and time. The right trade for the team we had and the schedule we were running.
- Samsung TV+ as the FAST partner. Going deep with one strong partner instead of trying to be on every FAST aggregator. The integration was tighter and the launch was cleaner.
- Multi-court live as a feature, not an experiment. Audiences had been conditioned to accept "the director chooses what you watch." Letting viewers pick the court was a deliberate UX bet that paid off on the engagement side.
- Treat remote production as the default, not the backup. When COVID forced the move, we didn't bolt remote production on top of the existing flow. We rebuilt the flow around remote being the normal case. That made it sustainable past the COVID window.
Outcomes
T2 launched on Samsung TV+ as a real 24/7 FAST channel. It was one of the first homes for premium live tennis on FAST in the US market. The live event operation kept tournaments on the air through the worst of the travel restrictions and continued running afterward because the model was just better.
The multi-court live model gave audiences a different way to engage with tennis. The cloud master-control approach gave the company a model for live sports that small teams could actually run.
What I learned
Operational constraints can force product wins. The multi-court live model wouldn't have happened without the operational pressure to do more with less. The constraint pushed us toward a feature that turned out to be better than the previous default.
Cloud infrastructure is a small-team superpower. The headcount math only works when you accept that the cloud is the production environment, not a backup or an experiment.
Audiences will pick if you let them. Letting viewers choose the court instead of relying on a network director's cut was a small UX decision with an outsized engagement signal.