Golden State Warriors Celebrate Their Past, Future With 75th-Anniversary-Themed Intro Video The video is only one part of the game-day entertainment By Kristian Hern ndez, Associate Editor Wednesday, November 17, 2021 - 10:26 am
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After playing nearly six decades in San Francisco and Oakland, the Golden State Warriors are a permanent fixture in California's Bay Area. In the National Basketball Association's 75th season, the franchise is honoring its illustrious history - which dates to 1946 in Philadelphia - as well as its promising present and future with a pregame hype video.
This was a labor of love, and we're really happy with the results that we've seen so far, says Amanda Chin, VP, brand marketing, Golden State Warriors. It was a full team effort, and now 18,000 fans in the stands are able to experience the video together.
https://www.sportsvideo.org/new/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Intro.mp4
Offseason Work: Warriors' Creative Process Begins in July While the players worked toward getting into shape for the upcoming season, staffers at the Warriors were busy developing a brand-new idea for home games at Chase Center. This is an annual task, but, because the 2021-22 regular season has special significance, members of the creative crew brainstormed potential concepts and storylines that would dictate the message of their annual intro video.
One fact driving their thinking is that the Warriors are one of the oldest teams in the league (only the Boston Celtics, New York Knicks, Detroit Pistons, and Sacramento Kings are older). With that in mind, the crew wanted to keep the team's passionate fans at the center of the video - especially since the team played before empty stands for almost the entire 2020-21 NBA season.
To bring all of these points together, multiple departments -brand marketing, public relations, basketball operations - worked together. Two people would play pivotal roles: Creative Director Rudy Crew, who was brought in to the organization for his expertise working on the NBA All-Star Game, and Warriors Co-Executive Chairman Peter Guber, who worked on Hollywood productions of movies like Batman and The Color Purple.
Murals painted by the Bay Area's Illuminaries provide a backdrop for the Golden State Warriors hype video.
We had the benefit of having Peter, who's a real expert in production space, to weigh in on the video, says Chin. He was aligned with our vision but also provided some input to augment the creative and help it pop in certain areas.
The goal was to have the video finished by the home opener vs. the Los Angeles Clippers on Thursday, Oct. 21. As in previous years, most of the players seen in the video were captured during preseason Media Day.
Meaningful Details: Footage Spotlights Community Connection, Famous Players The 1:10 video is packed with noteworthy elements. To make it Bay Area-centric, the video begins with a satellite map of the city and splices in fans wearing Warriors gear on the streets of San Francisco and Oakland. One pertinent nod to the city is the participation of the Illuminaries, a group of local muralists who paint the town with their imagination. Over the years, these artists have been commissioned by other local pro teams: the San Francisco 49ers in San Jose prior to Super Bowl LIV last year, the Oakland Athletics in the city's downtown in 2017, and the San Francisco Giants to acknowledge their 2012 World Series victory.
Archival footage in the video features legends like Wilt Chamberlain and his 100-point game.
Two Warriors-themed murals in Oakland (one of Klay Thompson made in 2019, one of Steph Curry from 2016) appear in this year's video. More important, the muralists were recruited to create two editions of a Dub Nation flag, one of which would be included in the video and used at all Warriors home games this season.
Every nation has a flag, notes Chin. We didn't want to dictate what that flag looked like or what it should be. We posted the two flags on social media and had our fans vote on which one they wanted to be brought into the game experience. We wanted to bring [additional] authenticity by having something for the community designed by the community.
This version of the Dub Nation flag won the contest and now has its own mural in the city.
The Illuminaries created this Dub Nation flag for all home games.
The flag and murals are key elements, but faces from the past and present show up in the video as well. A few of them highlight the team's early days, such as Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain from the team's residency in Philadelphia; Hall of Famer Rick Barry of the Warriors' first championship in California, in 1975; and Hall of Famer Chris Mullin and five-time All-Star Tim Hardaway from the '80s and '90s. Footage from the early 2000s shows a young Baron Davis, Matt Barnes, and Jason Richardson of the 2006-07 We Believe Warriors, who defeated the No. 1 Dallas Mavericks as a No. 8 seed in the NBA Playoffs. From the present era, fans can see the three Larry O'Brien trophies won in the 2015, 2017, and 2018 seasons - a jumping-off point for the team's now grizzled veterans Curry and Draymond Green.
The video also shows the current players in different ways: some clapping and flexing as the video builds to its crescendo, others making hustle plays beneath sayings like Hard Work and Commitment, and Klay Thompson, who has the only speaking role in the video. Thompson's cameo in particular receives a lot of positive feedback from fans since he's slowly making his way back to the court after missing the 2019-20 season with a torn ACL and the 2020-21 season with a torn Achilles. Whether new or old players, all are tied to a team characterized by one simple phrase: Establ
