Basketball
Formerly the Manchester Met Mystics, this women’s basketball team re-franchised in 2023 to merge with the Manchester Giants. With a strong heritage of basketball talent consisting of Olympians like Dominique Allen, Manchester Giants retains their local connections with many Manchester Metropolitan Sports Scholars playing for the team.
As part of my experience at the men’s games, I shadowed the Floor Manager. This was a new experience for me as the broadcast was ran from two different locations - the National Basketball Performance Centre where the games were being filmed and then back at the studio in Ealing with the commentators. She communicated with the referee using various signals to indicate media time outs and the time remaining before being back on air and action resuming.
I also got an opportunity to try activation, facilitating games with the fans and hyping out the crowd to help generate an electrifying atmosphere for the players and a great game day experience.
I also got to work on the FIBA livestream for the Women’s EuroBasket tournament, acting as a sound recordist. This was another brilliant opportunity to work on a professional stream at a very high profile event.
For the women’s team, I operated the graphics for the British Basketball League live streams when the Manchester Giants Women’s team played at home. This involved the starting line ups, keeping track of points, each quarter, time outs and other breaks in play.
As part of this I got to work with Caz Bullock who does the commentary for the games. This was an invaluable experience for me as I got to learn more about commentating as a whole and she was invaluable in giving me constructive feedback on my own commentary.
