On the Hardwood: Minnesota Timberwolves Feature On-Court Media Day With Drone Flyover at Target Center Even without fans onsite, game-day experience offers usual intro video, mascot antics By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor
Friday, January 22, 2021 - 9:17 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.
Basketball fans around the country were already excited about the 2020-21 regular season, but, 24 hours before tipoff, anticipation increased for Minnesota Timberwolves supporters when the franchise released a cinematic drone flyover of the interior and exterior of Target Center. As one of the video's highlights, the production team conducted a new version of its Media Day, which has become a microcosm of in-venue operations this year.
Media Day was really strange this year, says Alyse Danikowski, manager, game presentation, Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx. We usually have a whole round-robin with local and national media there, but, this year, it was just our in-house team.
MORE ON THE HARDWOOD INTERVIEWS:
After Assisting Fox Sports Sun, Miami Heat Retrofit Control Room for Games in AmericanAirlines Arena
Denver Nuggets Repurpose RSN Broadcast With Some In-Venue Flavor
Atlanta Hawks Honor Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. in First of Season-Long Unity Nights'
Player-Generated Content: Inside the Timberwolves' Preseason Media Day Prior to the start of the regular season, the production crew put in a lot of energy and effort putting Media Day together. In prior years, each player and a team representative would meet with each national and local media outlet for about 10 minutes. With the external organizations kept away from the venue by the COVID-19 pandemic, Danikowski's in-venue team and other departments collaborated on a safe yet efficient plan.
Inside the Minnesota Timberwolves control room
We had four total stations: two on the court for some intro videos with dramatic lighting, another with a green-screen station, and one with a gray screen for interviews, she says. Our RSN [Fox Sports North] had a station as well as two photo stations and a couple of Zoom stations that no one manned.
Other than the players, only 15 people at a time were allowed inside Target Center. Throughout the two-hour period, the Timberwolves' production staff coordinated with the players when they had free time after practice. Since personnel within the organization are all tested and abiding by safety protocols, the staffers were able to direct each player as to what station to go to next. Since this operation had some new workflows and elements, the crew wanted to make sure that they grabbed what they needed while they had premium access to the players.
At the end of Media Day, you're always asking, Did I get what I needed?' but it was even more so this year, says Danikowski. Even though it was definitely different, it went pretty smoothly.
Maintaining Energy: In-Venue Show Includes Intro Video, Pregame Light Show Since fans aren't experiencing the game in person this season, many production crews are forgoing the traditional videoboard show and game-day experience. This isn't the case in Minnesota: the team is opting to continue elaborate pregame festivities. Even so, the staff is adjusting the run of show to omit content that would be geared toward patrons onsite.
Mixers provide fake crowd noise at Target Center.
We're pumping in music since we still want to create that home-court advantage, Danikowski explains. We're also producing our intro sequence with a video and lights, but we're not necessarily running the different player features or the Military Member of the Game that we usually would.
The team is having some fun with the empty arena, including humor that features Crunch the Wolf. The goal is to fire up the players with some of the stimuli they're accustomed to.
We don't have the fans necessarily cheering along with our videoboard prompts, notes Danikowski, but we want to keep the energy high for the guys on the court. We're still getting used to the [fake] crowd noise in terms of keeping it realistic, but it has been interesting to find that balance when you're the one actually controlling it.
Connecting the Lynx: WNBA Bubble Gives Much-Needed Practice Minnesota Timberwolves' Alyse Danikowski in front of the videoboard during the season opener vs. the Detroit Pistons on Dec. 23
Preparations for the 2020-21 NBA season began months ago during the WNBA bubble in Bradenton, FL. Working with the four-time-champion Minnesota Lynx, Danikowski and company showcased their creativity with content shown in the confined space during the three-month Wubble.
They had a couple of screens for sponsorship and corporate partners, but we created an intro video, various noise prompts, and Lynx Win' graphics, she says. We also produced pregame shows for these games on our website, Twitter, and Facebook that presented player and coach interviews as well as player features.
This content allowed the team to take a different approach and become a little more comfortable with what has become the standard over the past 10 months.
Getting that sort of experience was a good way to build up to the Wolves' season, Danikowski adds. We were able to get into that headspace of bringing this entertainment to a fan-less arena and engaging our fans that are at home. A lot of other teams
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: Minnesota Timberwolves Feature On-Court Media Day With Drone Flyover at Target Center Even without fans onsite, game-day experience offers usual intro video, mascot antics By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor 
