On the Hardwood: Atlanta Hawks Honor Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. in First of Season-Long Unity Nights' These theme nights are centered around community, positive social change By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor
Monday, January 18, 2021 - 9:00 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The doldrums of 2020 may be in the past, but 2021 is still presenting challenges to in-venue production teams. Now out of the Orlando bubble, NBA organizations are hosting games in their home arenas and navigating the continuing difficulties of the pandemic. Like SVG's At the Ballpark and On the Gridiron series, On the Hardwood will take a look the hardships, creative ideas, and teamwork of NBA franchises.
The Hawks have ramped up their videoboard content since the start of the season.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s passion for Civil Rights and racial equality has become a beacon of perseverance and hope around the world, but in Atlanta, he means so much more than that. The Atlanta Hawks are celebrating MLK Day with the first of many Unity Nights that spotlight the true meaning of community, love of thy neighbor, and the character of the city's most venerated icon.
This year's MLK game will be celebrated differently at State Farm Arena due to the COVID world we're all living in, but because of the MLK jersey and court, we feel like this is the most meaningful tribute to his honor that we've ever done here in Atlanta, says Joe Abercrombie, SVP, live entertainment and production, Atlanta Hawks. It's truly something special, and we can't wait for our fans and the nation to see both in action.
MORE ON THE HARDWOOD INTERVIEWS:
Denver Nuggets Repurpose RSN Broadcast With Some In-Venue Flavor
Celebrating the City's Roots: Unity Nights To Feature MLK-Themed Content Martin Luther King Jr. is always on the mind of the citizens of Atlanta, but the Hawks made it a point to highlight the activist's impact on the city during the offseason. When the team unveiled its new MLK City Edition uniforms, it was the first time that an individual's initials were stitched on an official on-court jersey. As the team debuts these uniforms, the production team is taking this theme an extra step further by placing MLK at the center of tonight's MLK Day Game Presented by Chase.
We'll have a special MLK open video that we'll use, says Drew Frank, manager, game operations, Atlanta Hawks. During each of these different games, we'll have some vignettes where the players will talk about MLK's impact on them personally and also on the world.
Plexiglass dividers have been installed in the control room.
Producing these live and prepackaged segments have come with its fair share of challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to restrictions on who is allowed into the building - full-time staff and friends/family of players are permitted - the crew is getting creative by capturing some of these traditions digitally, including the singing of the National Anthem and starting lineup by a choir.
In a COVID world, we're trying to adjust while maintaining some of the same traditions that we've done in the past, says Andre Hickman, director of live programming, Atlanta Hawks. In the past, they've rehearsed the players' names since we normally don't get the starting lineup until 15 minutes before the game. This year, we'll record them saying their names, and when we get the starting lineup, we'll take clips and marry them in real time to the music that's playing in the background. This is the first time that we'll doing it in this manner, but we have a plan to executing this correctly.
Aside from these production staples, the in-venue experience and content shown on the linear broadcast is drawing inspiration from the City Edition jerseys and court. Developed by Vice President of Brand Creative Shirley Zhang and her team, the stained-glass illustrated on both the jersey and court will lead the aesthetic look of the on-air and videoboard content.
The design of the court and uniforms are really instrumental to how we're framing our look and feel for these Unity Night games, continues Hickman. We're taking those elements of stained-glass and the MLK lettering to bring the arena to life.
At-Home Connection: Franchise Aims to Produce Pregame Live Stream KK Salmonsen (left) and a fellow operator handle crowd noise.
While at home, the Hawks made an effort to interact with their fans during the 2020 NBA Draft with a live streamed virtual Draft party back in November. Since these fans are still watching games on their television sets, the organization is looking to up this connection by continuously working with their television partners, including Fox Sports Southeast, and digital team to live stream a pregame show from the arena.
For a long time, the NBA has said that teams can do some pregame live streaming while the players are on the court, says Abercrombie. We've wanted to take advantage of that for a while, and I think this is the opportunity to do it.
Along with the videoboard show and surrounding content, this live stream could be another chance to spread the message of MLK and highlight the jerseys that the players are wearing on the floor. With fans stuck in their living rooms, it could also be used to bring the complete fan experience back home since they're deprived of those pregame festivities.
We'll be able to focus [the pregame] around our Unity Nights with the MLK jerseys and court, he adds. I don't think that we're going to be doing a lot of in-game live streams, but as far as a pregame show, we are definitely working towards doing that.
In-Venue Audio: Developing the Fabricated Soundscape Frank, in the Hawks mask, works from his courtside position.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
01/06/2026
Designed to solve a common problem in broadcasting, the automated workflow detects, identifies, removes, and documents copyrighted music
AudioShake has introdu...
01/06/2026
The sports-analytics company combines its data with proprietary AI to help leagu...
01/06/2026
Category line-up & sponsors announced
Photo: Paul Clarke
The Production Music Awards (PMA) have announced that submissions are now officially open ahead of...
01/06/2026
New hybrid sample/synthesis instrument revealed
Excite Audio have just released the latest instalment in their Evolve series, which has been developed in co...
01/06/2026
Latest TONEX expansion captures three rare vintage amps
The newest addition to IK Multimedia's ever-growing TONEX line-up introduces a set of three incr...
01/06/2026
Musically intelligent soft synth gets upgraded
Scaler Music will be probably be best known to many for their music theory tools, but their product range al...
01/06/2026
SBS confirms its broadcast sponsors for FIFA World Cup 2026
1 June, 2026
Media releases
SBS has secured Hyundai, Hisense, Macca's, Rexona, bet365, Com...
01/06/2026
Rohde & Schwarz Satellite Industry Days 2026 guided by the motto From Earth to ...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Marshall Electronics is showcasing a comprehensive lineup of next-generation POV cameras, purpose-built to power today's connected AV environments, at InfoC...
01/06/2026
Adobe Announces Concept to Vector
Deepa Subramaniam June 1, 2026
0 Comments
One of the biggest frustrations we hear from designers is how difficult it...
01/06/2026
Vampire Feature Night Patrol Graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton June 1, 2026
0 Comments
Colorist shapes dark, gritty tone for horror thri...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Mardi 2 juin 14h00
FilmLight (ARRI), 10 rue Ren Boulanger, 75010 Paris
Rejoignez-nous pour d couvrir comment FLAPI (l'API FilmLight) peut transformer e...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
31/05/2026
Olivia P rez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona The Berklee graduate and faculty member will debut her choral symphony with...
31/05/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Wins 15 Awards at the Canadian Screen Awards - See Pho...
31/05/2026
Taiwan is home to more than 500 NVIDIA ecosystem partners. More than 1 million N...
31/05/2026
As factories move from isolated automation to plant-wide intelligence, manufacturers need AI systems that can connect live machine signals, quality systems, wor...
31/05/2026
The NVIDIA AI Cloud ecosystem is accelerating the global buildout of AI factory infrastructure. Partners are expanding capacity to meet growing demand from ente...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
On the Hardwood: Atlanta Hawks Honor Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. in First of Season-Long Unity Nights' These theme nights are centered around community, positive social change By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor 
