Not really, Tex-Mex Productions came about several months before as Craig Bell, Director of Tennis at Bent Tree Country Club, was introduced to an "innovative" video and audio technician named Ramiro Guiterrez through a mutual friend, Hiram Gonzalez, who works with Craig at Bent Tree Country Club. Ramiro did a number of tennis related projects around the club using his video skills to enhance a nu
mber of our club activities in 2013 and 2014. True story, one morning in late fall, 2014 when Craig was shaving in the shower an advertisement came on the shower radio he was listening to about home security systems and how you can watch what's taking place in your home even if you are half way around the world due to the camera's and software technology being used by this home security company. Craig had a very popular local tennis tournament about to take place at Bent Tree Country Club in about 4-5 weeks (January, 2015) and this radio ad peaked Craig's curiosity about broadcasting his tennis event via the world wide web, somehow, someway. Craig contacted Ramiro about using this home security system to broadcast his amateur doubles tennis event online using this home security systems camera's and software technology seeing if Ramiro thought this might be a viable way to broadcast the upcoming tennis tournament. Ramiro told Craig to give him a week or so and let him do some research and he would get back with him. About 3-4 weeks before the tennis event Ramiro called Craig and said he was 90% sure he had figured out a way to broadcast Craig's tennis event via an online streaming company. But let him have a couple of more days to totally figure out if broadcasting the tennis event would be viable. A few more days passed, then Ramiro called Craig and told him he was 100% certain that the idea Craig had about broadcasting amateur tennis was a reality. Craig was ecstatic and said at whatever cost (reasonable cost that is) he would like to try to make this broadcast take place. Ramiro dropped by Bent Tree Country Club, about 2 weeks before the tennis tournament in mid January, to trouble shoot any issues that might need to be addressed before the tournament started. All systems were a go after this initial trouble shooting session and so on January 8th, 2015 the first amateur tennis tournament in the world was broadcast live via UStream. We know that there have been other professional tennis events broadcast via online streaming but we feel that this was the first time amateur tennis has been broadcast via the world wide web. After five days of broadcasting, roughly 20 hours of match play there were right 2,800 views in 35 states with the stream reaching 6 countries. These numbers shocked Craig and Ramiro and thus they figured there was sufficient interest in broadcasting live amateur tennis events on the internet and maybe form some type of production company. So out of an idea Craig had while shaving in the shower, Tex-Mex Productions has formed with Ramiro as President of the company and Craig serving as CEO. Since Craig's event in mid January, Tex-Mex Productions has broadcast the Little Mo Tennis Tournament from Arlington, Texas on March, 14th and they are now headed to Austin, Texas to broadcast via UStream the Westwood Senior Tennis Championships from Westwood Country Club. This is a USTA Super Category II tennis tournament with Westwood hosting somewhere around 450 tennis participants.
