The Mariners and their fans needed a comeback. After losing Games 3 and 4 of the American League Championship Series in Seattle this week, the chance to clinch a first-ever World Series berth at T-Mobile Park had slipped away. Now, headed into Game 5 against the Toronto Blue Jays, the control room was preparing for the last guaranteed baseball game in the Emerald City this season.
So how do you get a sellout crowd of M’s fans onto their feet and cheering like there’s no tomorrow? And how do you keep folks excited and smiling for nine innings (or more) when the games can be so stressful that smartwatches send out cardio warnings?
“Ultimately it’s just knowing the fans, knowing the team and knowing your content,” said Nicholas Sybouts, coordinator of game entertainment for the Mariners.
Three hours before first pitch on Friday, Sybouts and Tyler Thompson, the Mariners’ director of game entertainment and experiential marketing, were poring over a thick stack of papers that detailed the schedule for the game. Not the baseball itself, mind you. Each minute of the game off the field is carefully orchestrated, from the ceremonial first pitch to the team’s famous salmon run and late-game rally videos.
Thompson said well-timed rally videos — featuring everything from breathing exercises to sea shanties and the fan-favorite Windows desktop crash screen — have been winning strategies for reviving the crowd this season at T-Mobile Park. A good idea can come from anywhere, Sybouts said. He and Thompson create a storyboard for each video before sending it to a team of motion graphic animators to bring the idea to life.
The team creates so many ideas, in fact, that they have filled up an entire binder that’s divided into subgroups that reflect the tone of the game.
“You don’t want to play a cute otter video when the team is down,” Sybouts said.
Half of the entries are highlighted green, which means they were added for the postseason. Control room operators Edward Cunningham and Zachary McHugh are in charge of queuing up each video onto the ballpark’s enormous video board.
“We’ve been rolling out some new ones,” Cunningham said. One of them, dubbed the “horror rally,” quotes a sound bite from the Texas Rangers broadcast booth, which called T-Mobile Park “a nightmare” for opposing teams.
Running the scoreboard is no walk in the park. The team reacts in real time and efficiently communicates with each other to line up videos that fit the tone of any given moment in a game.
“In baseball, anything can happen,” Cunningham said. “So, it kind of keeps us on our toes a lot.”
Throughout a season, about 2.5 million fans come through the ballpark, Sybouts said. Being able to serve sold-out crowds during the postseason has been special, said Sybouts, who was born in Yakima and is a lifelong Mariners fan.
“People are doing so much to be here,” he said. “They’re finding tickets, they’re taking time off work. So many people’s lives are invested in Mariners baseball right now, and it means the world that we could help create unforgettable experiences for them.”
by Nicole Pasia, Seattle Times | Read more:
Images: Ivy Ceballo
“Ultimately it’s just knowing the fans, knowing the team and knowing your content,” said Nicholas Sybouts, coordinator of game entertainment for the Mariners.
Three hours before first pitch on Friday, Sybouts and Tyler Thompson, the Mariners’ director of game entertainment and experiential marketing, were poring over a thick stack of papers that detailed the schedule for the game. Not the baseball itself, mind you. Each minute of the game off the field is carefully orchestrated, from the ceremonial first pitch to the team’s famous salmon run and late-game rally videos.
Thompson said well-timed rally videos — featuring everything from breathing exercises to sea shanties and the fan-favorite Windows desktop crash screen — have been winning strategies for reviving the crowd this season at T-Mobile Park. A good idea can come from anywhere, Sybouts said. He and Thompson create a storyboard for each video before sending it to a team of motion graphic animators to bring the idea to life.
The team creates so many ideas, in fact, that they have filled up an entire binder that’s divided into subgroups that reflect the tone of the game.
“You don’t want to play a cute otter video when the team is down,” Sybouts said.
Half of the entries are highlighted green, which means they were added for the postseason. Control room operators Edward Cunningham and Zachary McHugh are in charge of queuing up each video onto the ballpark’s enormous video board.
“We’ve been rolling out some new ones,” Cunningham said. One of them, dubbed the “horror rally,” quotes a sound bite from the Texas Rangers broadcast booth, which called T-Mobile Park “a nightmare” for opposing teams.
Running the scoreboard is no walk in the park. The team reacts in real time and efficiently communicates with each other to line up videos that fit the tone of any given moment in a game.
“In baseball, anything can happen,” Cunningham said. “So, it kind of keeps us on our toes a lot.”
Throughout a season, about 2.5 million fans come through the ballpark, Sybouts said. Being able to serve sold-out crowds during the postseason has been special, said Sybouts, who was born in Yakima and is a lifelong Mariners fan.
“People are doing so much to be here,” he said. “They’re finding tickets, they’re taking time off work. So many people’s lives are invested in Mariners baseball right now, and it means the world that we could help create unforgettable experiences for them.”
by Nicole Pasia, Seattle Times | Read more:
Images: Ivy Ceballo
[ed. Historic night tonight. Go Ms! Update: Not to be, unfortunately... oh well, still a great, great season, just two runs short. Toronto now gets to face this guy: Shohei Ohtani just played the greatest game in baseball history (WSJ):]
This is Beethoven at a piano. This is Shakespeare with a quill. This is Michael Jordan in the Finals. This is Tiger Woods in Sunday red.
This is too good to be true with no reason to doubt it. This is the beginning of every baseball conversation and the end of the debate: Shohei Ohtani is the best baseball player who has ever played the game, the most talented hitter and pitcher of an era in which data and nutrition have made an everyman’s sport a game for superhumans. And Friday night, when he helped his Los Angeles Dodgers win the pennant with a 5-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, was his Mona Lisa.
This is Beethoven at a piano. This is Shakespeare with a quill. This is Michael Jordan in the Finals. This is Tiger Woods in Sunday red.
This is too good to be true with no reason to doubt it. This is the beginning of every baseball conversation and the end of the debate: Shohei Ohtani is the best baseball player who has ever played the game, the most talented hitter and pitcher of an era in which data and nutrition have made an everyman’s sport a game for superhumans. And Friday night, when he helped his Los Angeles Dodgers win the pennant with a 5-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, was his Mona Lisa.
