Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of professional sports games? Portland’s professional basketball team, the Trail Blazers, runs a tight ship to ensure nothing slips through the cracks and breaks the magic of National Basketball Association (NBA) games.
There are various components and departments inside Trail Blazer games, such as basketball operations and game operations. These two departments have different focuses that aid in the same goal: a seamless game experience for players and fans. The basketball operations department ensures the gameplay goes smoothly; head coaches and strategy analysts fall into this category. The game operations department is more focused on the fan experience, catering to keep them engaged throughout the game during timeouts, halftime, and even when their team might be losing.
At the Moda Center, the home of the Trail Blazers, game operations play a significant role in keeping crowds coming back to each game. While the Blazers don’t have a history of record-breaking seasons, they do have a fanbase that continues to show their support for the team. When it comes to making sure fans have a seamless experience at Moda, various groups of people are running the show right under fans’ feet. The large crew has various responsibilities, from sound and lighting technicians to the Director of Game Operations, Todd Bosma, who announces the winners of mini-games like Jamba — where contestants shoot three free-throws to give the whole stadium free smoothies — and the half-court shot.
A typical game day for game operations starts with a crew meeting at 5 p.m., where they run over their script with in-stadium announcer Mark Mason and ensure their time slots for games and performances can happen — typically occurring during timeouts and ad breaks. Even Blazers mascots Blaze the Trail Cat and Douglas Fur attend these meetings so they know their cues.
Every game is different, and this causes their job to be very unpredictable. Game operations prioritize keeping things captivating and engaging because, although they do not influence the final result of the game, they do have some influence over the public’s experience. After their meeting, everyone sits down for dinner to discuss their predictions for the night.
On a standard game day, Willen Sin, the senior manager of game operations for the Trail Blazers, starts his work much earlier than their afternoon meeting. “So on average, I probably get here [at] 10 a.m. on a game day, and that is pretty standard if we have a 7 o’clock game,” Sin states. Sin might start his morning with a meeting or having conversations with sponsors and other departments to discuss the game and other upcoming events.
If he doesn’t have any meetings, there is still plenty of preparation to be done, such as coordinating performers’ credentials to be in the building, checking and confirming the parking list, and even ensuring everyone has the context of what’s happening for the game. From around 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., his team is “gathering prizes and ensuring everything’s all checked off.” Sin explains this process: “On a day-to-day basis if we’re giving away x amount of prizes, we have to work with our partnership team. Like, ‘Hey, do you guys have the 25 items that we’re passing out?’ Just reaffirming a lot of that stuff.”
Following this, depending on the halftime performance for the night, the court is typically blocked out for a window of time so the performers can rehearse and get a feel for the court. At this time, lighting is checked, and there is a lot of communication between the game operations team and the performers to ensure they know what time to show up and where to go. “Soundcheck happens around, like, 3–3:15 p.m., and soundcheck is when we go through every single video, every single element that we’re going through in the game to make sure that it plays on the big screen,” Sin explains. From there, his team “adjusts [their] levels to make sure that [they’re] not blowing out [their] audience’s ears when a video comes on too loud, or too soft.”
The team also ensures that the national anthem performer, the Blazer dancers, and the stunt team can come in and perform. This preparation ultimately leads to their 5 p.m. meeting. “There’s a little break before the chaos when the doors open. But then, once the doors open, it’s on my team to start picking contestants for any on-court exhibitions we have,” Sin remarks. “Then the kind of fan experience has started, so we start way before the game itself tips off.”
But, you may ask, how does all this staff communicate and ensure they’re all on the same page? The crew has headsets that switch to different channels based on where they are in the arena. Sin says, “Depending on your pack, you can speak to different people.” There’s a party channel where everyone can talk called Game Ops, while lighting has its own channel. Low Post, the “command, [and] production area, is our big screen. They have their own channel,” Sin recalls. He continues, “Todd [Bosma], our director, can speak to everyone on those channels, but not everyone needs that access.”
As basketball games are unpredictable, their job can be too, so preparation and learning from experience is key. “That’s the beauty of this job, though. … It is live production, and so you never know what’s gonna happen. And, there isn’t really any way to prepare,” Sin states. They’ve mostly learned through past experiences and, from there, have implemented strategies that allow them to solve problems when they arise. Sin recalls one common example: “Sometimes the national anthem singers that we manage forget the lyrics to the national anthem. So we encourage whoever’s managing that to have a printout of the national anthem lyrics ready on their clipboard, ready to go.” He continues, saying, “That comes with experience and knowing to cover those moments and learning when they happen.”
While the game operations team is running the show for the fans in the arena, videographers and editors are working hard to ensure fans tuning into the broadcast or looking on Blazers’ social media are up to date on the night’s events. High Post and Low Post are two departments that focus on cutting, editing, and exporting the media playing inside Moda and onto broadcasts and social media pages.
Tristan Brillanceau-Lewis, the Trail Blazers on-court videographer, has combined his lifelong passion for filming with his appreciation for his hometown. He attended Portland State University and “got an internship out there with a small sports media creative agency company. They did videos for the Pac-12 and Nike, internal type stuff.” Brillanceau-Lewis explains, “That’s how I got into sports.” He travels to most away games with the team to shoot videos for broadcasts and social media.
Regarding in-game, on-court recordings being sent to High and Low Post, the Trail Blazers team has a camera-to-cloud service that allows videographers, like Brillanceau-Lewis, to transmit clips during quick breaks like time outs. The process of getting a clip into the broadcast involves many people. Brillanceau-Lewis explains, “Let’s say a big dunk happens, and then I send it during the next time out, and then that clip goes to somebody on the social media side [to] cut it for social media.” He continues, “Then it goes to the broadcast side and gets cut for broadcast. Then, that footage is used for promotional stuff later on down the road. So it finds an avenue in any which way.”
One of Brillanceau-Lewis’ most notable videos, which gained traction and inspired many other professional sports leagues, featured an iconic skateboarding camera, the Sony VX1000. After a discovery that there was an old VX1000 in Trail Blazers storage, he was able to get the camera repaired and usable. “I was kinda like, I want to shoot a game with this. Why not? I wanna do something with it because, you know, there’s 82 games in a season, and it can get stagnant.” He continues, “You have to find ways to make it exciting, make something sort of exclusive, make something that’s not just like any other highlight.”
Now that we know more about the processes that occur daily at the Moda Center during the Trail Blazers season, what happens in the off-season? Sin recalls that this is one of the most common questions he gets and explains, “Actually, it’s kind of our busiest time because that’s actually when we are planning the most for the upcoming season.” When the team’s schedule is released, typically in August, the planning and conversations with sponsors and partners begin. “I would say the majority of the things that we do are probably in the off-season leading up to it, [so] that we’re prepared for [the season],” Sin declares.
It isn’t easy to run a full professional basketball game, maintain the in-stadium magic, and keep all fans engaged — even those watching from around their homes in Rip City. With all the moving pieces of Trail Blazer game operations, communication is key. “It’s really truly a group effort, and it’s just so cool to see all that comes to fruition every night,” Brillanceau-Lewis states.
Many people aid in the smooth running of these NBA games, and they deserve to be in the limelight, even when most people typically think only of the players when they think about the Portland Trail Blazers. Every NBA team will have different processes and priorities for running their games, as each team has its own reputation and what it might be known for. Nonetheless, the success of such events relies heavily on teamwork and meticulous planning, ensuring that every aspect of the game — from pre-game preparations to post-game activities — runs problem-free and provides an exceptional experience for both the players and the audience. This is how the Portland Trail Blazers maintain their fan experience, and, no matter the outcomes of games, they are able to foster a wonderful community.
