LA Clippers Director of Game Presentation Daniel Casados Creates A Game Day Experience Unique To Each & Every Individual

1Tell us about your role as Director of Game Presentation for the Los Angeles Clippers. What does a typical day look like for you?

The role of the Director of Game Presentation with the LA Clippers is a very busy role but also an enjoyable and gratifying role. The beauty of it is that there is no typical day…and that was before the craziness of 2020.

As the director of our department, I oversee our in-arena presentation, which is anything that is fan-facing and affects the atmosphere and energy inside and outside the arena on a game day.  That can include anything from music, graphics, videos, production (pyro, lasers), entertainment teams, the mascot, overall run-of-show, sponsored promotions, video board content, and controlling the overall energy of the arena based on what is going on during the game.

It is a position that requires a lot of planning, attention to detail, scenario management, rehearsal, calm nerves, and communication. 

Our team is comprised of about 5 full-time staff members, 5 part-time staff members and 50+ game night staff members.

Ultimately, all those team members fall under me and leading a big team of talented, ambitious and experienced individuals is very gratifying. However, it’s a challenge to manage so many different personalities, especially your game night entertainment team members, but this calls for leadership qualities from both our team and I.

When I say that no day is typical, it’s because it’s true.

We produce 41 regular-season home games, 3 preseason games, and several postseason games. Every one of those games is a different story. Whether it’s the opponent, the theme of the night or the team’s play preceding the game, every one of those games has a different strategy, preparation, and content.

One week, we can have only one home game and one week we can have 4 home games consisting of 3 different themes.

One week, you’re preparing a Christmas halftime production with over 40 entertainers, lights, lasers, fog and props, and the next week you’re consulting with the management teams of 2 hip hop artists who are set to perform at halftime.

One month, you may be preparing for an opening night that has to go off perfectly and another month may be filled with entertainment team auditions during the offseason. All these events/games require a different type of preparation and that’s what makes the job so enjoyable and fulfilling.

However, when we are preparing for an individual game, several details and elements go into it.  We must create a run-of-show that covers pregame, in-game, halftime and postgame.

We have 10 mandatory timeouts of 2:30+ minutes that we must schedule content for. We have 15 minutes of halftime to prepare content for. We must decide how long before the game we want to start our “show” depending on when the arena starts to fill up. We must determine how long each individual piece of content is and make it fit into the overall schedule like a puzzle. 

Once we’ve put that run-of-show together, we must create a script for every piece of content for our announcers to execute.

This involves working with our sponsor activation and marketing teams to gather correct scripts. Once that’s done, our staff must assign individual tasks to each of our team members to execute. This needs to be communicated seamlessly as we never want anything to fall through the cracks.

We must communicate with our in-arena DJ and audio specialist to discuss music during specific moments so that we create the atmosphere we’re aiming for. Anytime something player-related is executed (intro video, award presentation, player content videos), we must communicate with our Basketball Ops team to make sure we’re executing the way they want our team portrayed.

As you can see, A LOT of communication goes into the preparation of just one game and we do this for 50+ games during a season, so it takes a very well-prepared, detail-oriented yet creative staff.

2Given the year we’ve had thus far, in-game entertainment has significantly changed. Having no fans at games during the 2019-20 NBA season and for the foreseeable future, how are the LA Clippers positioning themselves to create just as much of a game day experience at home for fans?

I will start off by saying that there are obviously still several unknowns going into the foreseeable future. However, during the 2020 NBA Restart, I thought our team did a masterful job of taking the platforms that were given to us and adjusting, which resulted in an experience that our fans latched on to and enjoyed.

Once we executed the virtual fans experience that the NBA provided us with via Microsoft Teams for a few games, we were not satisfied.

Between latency challenges and not being able to mute the feed to interact with our fans during game breaks, we found the experience frustrating the first couple of “home” games. Thus, our IT Director worked with the NBA to get us an exclusive feed that we could take over at any time.

This meant that during timeouts, we could transition away from the television broadcast and provide our virtual fans with our own show. 

Once we had that set-up, I worked with our Game Presentation team to put together a robust run-of-show that mirrored what we’d run in-arena with fans.

We used a program called vMix and took all of the existing animations that we used in-arena and uploaded them to vMix.

We evaluated which promotions we could execute on a virtual platform and prepared those promos. We used our office as a home base and brought in 2 of our in-arena hosts to broadcast to our 4-5 virtual rooms we broadcasted to. We added room hosts to each of the rooms we were broadcasting to so that we could successfully execute all our promotions. 

We then produced and uploaded several player personality videos and pump videos into the vMix so that we could use those to set the tone for our fans.

We had our mascot and hosts record short reaction videos that we could play after in-game moments (clapping, 3-point goggles, flexing, reactions after questionable calls, funny reactions, etc.). We wanted to connect with our virtual fan base as much as we could. 

Once we executed a couple of games like this, we still wanted more buy-in from the fans.

Thus, we solicited some of our more active fans on social media and ran a campaign to form a “fan club” that we termed the “Our Way Crew.” These fans would have to attend every game online, stay for the entirety of the game, wear whatever color we asked them to wear, and follow each of our interactions during the game. This worked wonders!

The end product was a virtual fan base that was much more engaged, and it really showed up in the NBA Bubble in Orlando. During free-throws, you could see our entire sections cohesively doing the same thing. After dunks and 3-pointers, you could see the sections’ energy in Orlando.

We created a very intimate setting where these fans felt like they were at a game, interacting with our hosts, following along with our directions, and we were able to do some things we’re not able to in-arena.

The challenge in the future will be to continue garnering this interest from our fan base.

While it’s not the same thing as sitting in an arena of 20K fans, our goal is to create an environment and experience where our fans feel connected to our organization, feel like they can interact with other fans and in the end, feel compelled to cheer on the Clippers as if they were in an arena.

3Looking to the future, do you see a steady return once fans are able to visit the stadium again? What can teams do to ease any concerns and make it worthwhile to attend games in-person?

I think so.

We’ve already seen fans attend games in cities that are allowed to have fans at their venues.

The fans miss attending games. They miss that game day arena energy. The challenge will be communicating what the arenas and stadiums are doing to keep fans safe once they’re onsite, something that I believe these arenas and stadiums have had suitable time to plan for.

From a Game Presentation perspective, I think:

1. We need to continue to strive to give the fans the best experience they can get when they attend a game
2. Communicate to the fans (via the video board) what the venue is doing to keep them safe
3. Honor and present those on the front line who have stepped up monumentally during such an unprecedented and uncertain time

4In a Game Presentation role, there is always a lot going on at once. Sometimes, you may not even be sure who’s winning the game! With that being said, how do you manage all that goes into your role? Additionally, when challenges arise, how do you overcome such?

One of the most important traits but something that you wouldn’t automatically think is needed to succeed in this industry is being calm under pressure.

That takes experience and preparation.  Sports are unpredictable...you don’t know what’s going to happen from one moment to another.  But once you’ve experienced and seen enough scenarios, the key is to prepare properly. It’s a game of “ifs.” What do I have prepared “if” this happens? What do I have “if” that happens? 

There are moments that literally have 3 different potential outcomes and not only do I have to be prepared for each scenario, but I have to make sure that all 3 of those scenarios have been communicated to all our staff and that they know how to execute each option.

I’ve always communicated to my staff that if you prepare properly, you should not be nervous. You should be confident. That’s why we watch recordings of our games and dissect every aspect. That’s why we hold production meetings. That’s why we rehearse. Once we go into a game, it should not be the first time we’re running something or seeing it.

By that time, everyone should have already run through it and seen it enough times to be comfortable executing.

As a game director, being calm under pressure is so important because your team follows whatever vibe you set.

If I’m all over the place and freaking out, that’s going to trickle down. My job is to make everyone comfortable, communicate properly and give everyone the tools beforehand to carry out our show. And if any unpredictable moments occur, I have to trust my experience and instinct and calmly communicate to the team how we’re moving forward.

Working with the Clippers and at STAPLES Center is a challenge in itself.

We use AEG staff in our Control Room during games so communicating our show to individuals who also work Lakers and Kings games is no easy task.

Individuals have habits so it’s a challenge for them to adjust their mindset to what our specific show consists of, especially since it’s so different from the Lakers and Kings.

We also don’t get the rehearsal time that we’d like because our team holds closed practices on the court often on game days and our sales team sells to groups that take the court during the afternoon on a game day. 

Because we share the venue with two other teams (not to mention concerts), it’s not always possible to rehearse on a non-game day.

Thus, we must be very efficient with our time on the court and have to be very, very clear with our direction to the control room staff. We must carry out every meeting as if it’s the first time these people are hearing our specific instructions so that we make sure it’s properly ingested. It can be a challenge.

I think the way to combat some of these challenges is by creating positive work relationships with our partner staff from AEG and being a great communicator. I’ve had a vision since I came to LA and it’s my job to properly communicate that vision to everyone and be very specific when something is not in line with that vision.

However, it’s important to also give all individuals the platform to communicate any ideas or challenges they may experience so that we can all work as a team to achieve the overall goal together.