On the Hardwood: Charlotte Hornets Redesign Mobile App To Bring Spectrum Center Content to the Home Interviews, videos, fan activations, and giveaways are displayed on game day By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor
Wednesday, January 27, 2021 - 10:28 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 Charlotte Hornets were unable to participate in the NBA bubble, but, with a head start in the offseason, the franchise's digital team began developing a project that would maintain a buzz around the players. This season, its newly designed mobile app is allowing fans to digest pre/postgame interviews, cinematic videos, player features, and various in-venue fan activations and giveaways.
We knew that we had to change the way we were doing things, and the digital experience that we've created on our app is one of the ways that we're doing that, says Matt Rochinski, senior director, digital media, Charlotte Hornets. Right now, we don't have the ability to produce a second screen, but we wanted to find a way to connect our fans to the game because we all know that they're sitting at home and watching it on TV.
MORE ON THE HARDWOOD INTERVIEWS:
After Assisting Fox Sports Sun, Miami Heat Retrofit Control Room for Games in AmericanAirlines Arena
Atlanta Hawks Honor Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. in First of Season-Long Unity Nights'
Golden State Warriors Connect Team, Chase Center to Fans at Home Through Dub Hub Experience
Minnesota Timberwolves Feature On-Court Media Day With Drone Flyover at Target Center
Denver Nuggets Repurpose RSN Broadcast With Some In-Venue Flavor
Inside the Mobile Hive: App Offers Digital Exclusives, Touches of In-Venue Show Aside from the linear broadcast being shown on Fox Sports Southeast, the mobile app has become the other go-to destination for fans at home. Intended as a companion piece to the telecast, the app enables fan to interact with a wide array of multimedia before the game, during commercial breaks and halftime intermission, and after the game. For example, during any halftime, Rochinski and his staff work with Director, Game Presentation, Emily Ladd to bring the videoboard content, on-court entertainment, and other in-venue amenities to the digital platform.
The new design of the Charlotte Hornets mobile app incorporates themed games like Economic EmpowerMINT Night and high-profile players like guard Terry Rozier.
We've worked with Emily and her crew on this [project], especially for our halftime performances, he says. Those are some of the things that fans are missing, so that goes live on our app during halftime. We're trying to bring in more video pieces. More important, everybody loves giveaways. We're trying to find new and creative ways to bring that to our fans as well.
Unveiled before the contest against the Chicago Bulls on Friday, Jan. 22, the app's newest feature, Gameday Hub, is the location for the most essential information, such as trivia questions and relevant articles on notable player performances. In addition to statistics and spotlights on some of the key incentives for heading to the arena, the app zeroes in on fan participation in a fanless Spectrum Center. When fans were allowed in the venue, cameras would capture their reactions and antics in real time. Now the organization is trying to reproduce that with virtual options that allow fans to leave their mark on the game, such as a virtual Dance Cam.
We've looked at certain tentpoles that can keep bringing fans back [to the app], adds Rochinski. We've worked with a company called Rover to take those experiences on our app and push them out on social. It's a lot of juggling, but, somehow, we're finding a way to do it.
Preseason Work: Digital, Game-Day Teams Collaborate To Conquer Media Day Development of content for the app and the videoboard began during the preseason months. At the team's annual Media Day, Rochinski and Ladd worked together to obtain all the player-centric material they needed prior to the beginning of the 2020-21 regular season. For example, the team needed to capture up to 80% of their content collection during the two-day shoot. For the remaining 20% and other areas where the team needs to produce more-timely pieces, the organization has been understanding and flexible with player time.
Fans can get involved in the game-day experience in a multitude of ways, including interactive games and a feature on the virtual Dance Cam at Spectrum Center.
I thought we were really successful in our Media Day setup by getting everybody in and getting the content that we needed, says Ladd, but, if things pop up, we still have some access to the players. Everyone in the organization has been really great in managing expectations when someone asks for something last minute. Going through the proper channels and getting clearance are the extra steps that we need to take, but it's working out well.
When time-sensitive deadlines come into play, digital and game-day staff work together in a responsible way to get the content they need. It takes a lot of adapting since the workflows are still somewhat new. In the case of Media Day, each crew made the process more efficient by understanding organizational priorities.
We really had to be strategic in what we were gathering, Rochinski points out, by saying, Hey, what are the partnered elements that we need to absolutely
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
On the Hardwood: Charlotte Hornets Redesign Mobile App To Bring Spectrum Center Content to the Home Interviews, videos, fan activations, and giveaways are displayed on game day By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor 
