{"id":1518,"date":"2021-11-24T12:06:16","date_gmt":"2021-11-24T17:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/?post_type=inductees&p=1518"},"modified":"2022-01-07T12:30:46","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T17:30:46","slug":"tom-sahara","status":"publish","type":"inductees","link":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/inductees\/tom-sahara\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Sahara"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like many an engineer, former Turner Sports VP, Operations and Technology,\u00a0Tom Sahara<\/strong>\u00a0had an inkling at a young age that he had a knack for engineering and broadcast technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne year, I got a transistor radio and I ended up taking it apart,\u201d he recalls. \u201cMy mom said I always took everything apart and then, one day, I started putting everything back together. I guess I was always a tinkerer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tinkering would eventually lead to a 20-plus\u2013year career at Turner Sports and a role as a key force in the broadcaster\u2019s becoming a top-notch sports powerhouse. And Sahara\u2019s efforts at Turner Sports \u2014 particularly around developments related to HDTV, the move to digital, and next-generation audio \u2014 made him a leader on a global scale.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was a teenager,\u201d he says, \u201cI was exposed to electronics through a teacher who happened to be the advisor of the electronics club. I was curious about electronics because these radios and TVs just magically pull something out of the air. That intrigued me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He began reading anything he could get his hands on about electronics, and an electronics class in high school helped him realize he had a talent for fixing gadgets. Money from delivering newspapers and fixing TVs funded his habit for Heath Kits, which allowed him to build his own electronics.<\/p>\n

Sahara grew up in Hawaii, and his interest in a career in television was inspired when, shortly after graduating from high school, he watched news coverage of, of all things, a strike by local TV-station workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was all over the news,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s the first time I ever thought you can actually work in a TV station. That got my curiosity going and me seriously thinking about electronics as a career.\u201d<\/p>\n

His first professional break was working on live-music technical support for an AV electronics company servicing restaurants, night clubs, and cabarets. It wasn\u2019t long until he made the leap, at age 21, to Don Ho\u2019s live show.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon Ho gave me the exposure to the exciting careers around the entertainment world,\u201d says Sahara. \u201cIt was fun, and, in every night\u2019s performance, you had to give 110%. Television is much the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon, though, he realized that the entertainment business can be difficult. Was there something more stable?<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when that interest in TV came back,\u201d he says. \u201cI got my FCC license and went around to some of the TV stations and had an interview with the chief engineer [at KITV Honolulu]. He said, \u2018There are at least three or four people every day coming in saying I want to work here. Why should I consider you?\u2019 And I said, \u2018Well, I have one of these,\u2019 and pulled out my FCC license. He told me to start that weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

That FCC license put Sahara in charge of signing the station\u2019s transmitter logs, and he also handled master control on the weekends.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom there,\u201d he recalls, \u201cI just advanced into maintenance and learning all the systems. It was a lot of fun, and, in between commercials, I would take out all these manuals and start reading about the gear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sahara credits a thirst for knowledge and willingness to leap at new opportunities as key to his development.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat really drove me was always wanting to know about what\u2019s going on and how something works,\u201d he says. \u201cAt the TV station, there would be a sign-up sheet to work on remote productions like festivals and parades, and I would be standing right there with a pen in hand to be the first one to sign up. That\u2019s the way I approached everything: if an opportunity came up, I would raise my hand, say yes, and jump in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The leap to sports began with ABC\u2019s coverage of surfing events, such as the Pipeline Masters Surfing Championship. With FCC license in hand, Sahara would set up the microwave dish that would send the signal to the station.<\/p>\n

\u201cSports appealed to me because it was excitement on a regular basis,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was fun. I got to the point where I felt there was more to a career than being in a local station, so I started freelancing.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the early opportunities was on the golf events in Hawaii. NEP would provide technical facilities and support, and it was not long before Sahara met NEP stalwarts and Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famers\u00a0George Wensel<\/strong>,\u00a0John Roch\u00e9<\/strong>, and\u00a0Tom Shelburne<\/strong>\u00a0on a production.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey started bringing me out on bigger and bigger shows,\u201d Sahara says. \u201cBefore you know it, I was doing shows like the 1994 World Cup in Dallas. I met people from the Olympics, who asked me to join them for the Atlanta Olympics, and that\u2019s how I ended up in Atlanta.\u201d<\/p>\n

That 1996 Olympics gig (he would also work on the 2000 and 2002 Games) gave him a chance to feel part of something\u00a0really\u00a0<\/em>big.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Olympics are the best of the best,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the best of the athletes; it\u2019s the best of the broadcasters as well. It\u2019s an amazing experience to have this common thread with broadcasters from all across the world, all coming together.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not really competing against each other,\u201d he continues. \u201cWe\u2019re forming a team to present the best show in the world. That\u2019s an amazing experience to have. It\u2019s a lot of hard work, but, at the end of the day, you\u2019ve accomplished something that took the entire world to come together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arriving at Turner in 1997, Sahara served as manager of studio engineering for Turner Studios, responsible for technical operations for all live studio productions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got there,\u201d he recalls, \u201cit was basically a \u2018big\u2019 little cable company. With Executive Producer\u00a0Mike Pearl<\/strong>\u00a0and director\u00a0Lenny Daniels<\/strong>, we started looking at how we [could] get this cable company up to being a broadcast network. Mike and Lenny set the tone of how things should be. And Lenny, being a very collaborative guy, would sit with me, and we would talk about his vision and then figure out how to get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

The desire for collaboration spread to Sahara\u2019s own team, which laid out a vision and came up with lists on how to get things done.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d go through the list and identify what the biggest challenges were and work on that,\u201d he explains. \u201cWe just took it step by step. Once you worked on the big challenges, everything else seemed easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The growth of a network is always tied in with rights, and Turner Sports\u2019 growth spurt began when it took over the weekday rights to Wimbledon from HBO. Getting those rights gave Turner Sports a chance to show it could pull off really big things.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy that point,\u201d says Sahara, \u201cI had already gone through the Olympics and understood big events and how to put together world feeds and all of that. I also had a good working relationship with the Visions team in England. We basically built the facilities up and brought our production team over, and that was our team\u2019s big exposure in the world of international sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cWimbledon really changed the course of Turner Sports,\u201d he continues. \u201cIt served as a model for everything that happened after that. It also opened the door for Turner to take over the Goodwill Games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sahara\u2019s management philosophy is simple. First, take things one step at a time to avoid being overwhelmed, especially on a big project. Second, make sure you have the right team; they know what needs to be done.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy staff,\u201d he explains, \u201cwould come in saying \u2018I have a problem with so and so.\u2019 I would look at them and say, \u2018Okay you\u2019re responsible for them. Is the issue that you don\u2019t trust them, or did you not actually tell them what you wanted and what you needed?\u2019 At the end of the day, if you hire someone, you have to trust them to do their job and make sure they understand what you want.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his 20 years at Turner Sports, Sahara rose to the role of VP, operations and technology, and made sure technical operations made all the right moves to support NBA All-Star, March Madness, Major League Baseball, NASCAR, golf, and other productions. Toss in the transition to HD, some 3D production, and embracing digital production and new ways of working, and someone who always loved learning something new always had something new to learn.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn every sports-media division,\u201d says former Turner Sports President\u00a0David Levy<\/strong>, \u201cthere are individuals behind the scenes who are the true hidden treasures, responsible for helping drive groundbreaking innovation and production. For more than 21 years at Turner Sports, that was Tom Sahara. He developed a well-earned reputation as a forward-thinking executive, and his vision and technical prowess helped transform Turner Sports\u2019 remote and studio productions. Not only is Tom the consummate professional, who served as a mentor to many of his Turner Sports colleagues, but his warm and friendly personality sets him apart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Brown, Turner Sports, VP, Sports Production Tech<\/strong>, says it is hard to think about Turner Sports and not put Tom Sahara in the conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough he was generally very quiet, his presence was quite prominent, and that not only permeated throughout the Turner Sports family, but also the industry,\u201d he says. \u201cNot only was he good at his job, but he was also an amazing person and that was often times more important than the tech that was rattling around in his mind. That personability is one of the many legacies that he has left us with at Turner Sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

On events like the NBA All-Star Game, which eventually grew into a full weekend of activities, Sahara\u2019s efforts were appreciated at the highest league level.<\/p>\n

Says NBA EVP, Media Operations and Technology,\u00a0Steve Hellmuth<\/strong>, \u201cTom Sahara was a steady hand on the wheel of innovation for the NBA, always careful to hear any idea or concept out, and ready to apply expertise and engineering to make it work. In the area of audio, he was in the lead always, improving sounds from courtside year to year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team at CBS Sports, which worked closely with Sahara and the Turner team on March Madness and other events, is an example of the kind of outside organization that was impacted by Sahara. Patty Power, CBS Sports, EVP, Operations and Engineering<\/strong>, says Sahara was a terrific partner on the event.<\/p>\n

\u201d Tom is a big reason for our initial success and why the partnership continues to be so strong today,\u201d she says. \u201cTom\u2019s leadership, creativity and collaboration helped our teams seamlessly blend into one operation across four networks, two studios and a multitude of remote sites each year. Turner Sports and CBS Sports developed one of the most unique relationships in sports television, and that doesn\u2019t happen without Tom\u2019s expertise, support and most importantly, his friendship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sahara also served as SVG Chairman from 2013-2018, helping oversee the organizations expansion and growth both domestically and internationally. His vision helped the organization tackle a wider variety of technical areas and his desire to always look to the future always kept the organization moving forward and in the right direction.<\/p>\n

Today, Sahara is a consultant, and, once again, learning is important, with things like augmented reality on his current to-do list.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t have a plan for each step,\u201d he says regarding his career development. \u201cIt was always a serendipitous meeting of people saying, \u2018I\u2019m looking for someone,\u2019 and I would be there, or I would be referred. It was all by chance and luck, and I just happened to have the skills they were looking for. It has been a fantastic ride.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1519,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"tags":[55],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductees\/1518"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductees"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/inductees"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}