A little over a year ago, I got a part time job as a Cameraman at an NBA arena.

Since then I've been living out a basketball fan's dream, sitting in front of the front row for NBA, WNBA, NCAA, High School Basketball and some random other events.

I have court level access, which has led to shaking hands with Brad Stevens, fist bumping with Jesse Jackson, dodging kicks from cheerleaders, narrowly avoiding being bitten by Frisbee dogs, and some random encounters with players.

I've been run over...



on more than one occasion....




I've posted a few random musings in threadzilla...

But I've never delved too far into it. I figured that since I had a milestone post and the NBA is finally coming back, that now would be a decent time for a thread about what its like to work down on the floor among some of the best athletes in the world. So if you have any questions, fire away.

Or if no one is interested, it can sink away to obscurity.

how many games do you hope the colts win over the next 5 weeks?

please to be sharing some WNBA stories! any of them actually good looking up close?

will you free the phil spector avatar someday?

you said this is part time, so what do you do full time?? how much you get paid for this part time gig? can you make a living doing this or is this strictly something guys do part time?

Lots of them are attractive, the problem is that the uniforms are very unflattering.


The general consensus among my co-workers is that Erin Phillips is the most attractive player on the fever. The Australian accent doesn't hurt either.

The Deshaun Thomas collision looked liked it hurt from the video out of your camera. Any injury? Did he say anything to you when he got up?

The Phil Specter avatar was actually Suzzer. Though I did have an avatar that included Suzzer's avatar brokering peace between Tuq and I.

I play a little poker, and I work some other freelance video stuff.

The pay depends on what show you are on. I'm still low on the hierarchy and work the in house (the stuff on the scoreboards and TVs in the arena) and get something like $14/hr, which works out to like $70 a game. Also,
every camera is a 2 person job (one runs the camera, one handles the cable) and on the in house we switch at halftime. The guy holding the cable does literally nothing while the game is happening, only works during time outs, so I get to lounge next to cheerleaders and watch the game for half the time.

The broadcast guys get a significantly higher rate, but they have to be there many more hours and have to shoot the entire game.

worth it for the OP, loved the quick anecdotes, post more of those imo.

you forgot to mention your luchadoring imo

In your experience/from what you've seen, who in the league is either a much bigger douchebag or a much nicer guy than the public thinks?

Are you an employee of the NBA or contracted via some sort of temp agency? If you are actually on the NBA payroll directly, I have several follow up questions.

Also, cool thread and very awesome you get to do this.

Did you get to do any of the playoff games when the Bulls and Pacers played last year?

What do you do before/after the game, that makes it about 5 hours? What do the broadcast guys do, that makes it even longer?

That one hurt pretty good, but all I got out of it was a lump on the side of my head where the camera landed on me. That was during the big ten tournament so I had a bunch more games to do that day, so its good that it wasn't too serious.

If you notice, I'm sitting in an office chair for the Thomas hit, which led to a much more significant fall. In the Josh Howard GIF, I' m just sitting in a little bleacher seatback because the NBA doesn't allow full chairs. A real chair is much more comfortable, but when you get hit you'll pay the price.

Deshaun Thomas popped right up and ran back the other way. I thought he was going to help me up, and if you look you can actually see me reach my arm out... but then he turned and ran the back to the bench. Players don't usually stop, they're focused on the game. That is just how it goes, hes doing his job and I'm doing mine.

Referee Ted Valentine came over and I asked me like 3 times if I was okay. A few minutes later Valentine took an errant pass to the nuts right in front of me and I had to ask him if he was okay.

That Posey/Vujacic story is awesome.

Have you been a few feet away from Dwight Howard? I wonder what that is like, as I just find him to be an otherworldly physical specimen. Do you ever look at some of these guys close up and think "How can we be the same species?"

I haven't seen any really bad behavior, other than standard on court complaining that everyone can see at home. No NBA player has ever treated me rudely.

I was definitely surprised to see how intense Kevin Garnett is up close.
When I got to the court (2+ hours before tip-off) he already had the super intense game face on, and kept that scowl thought the final whistle. The moment the game was over, he was instantly a different person, smiled, shook hands with some soldiers in the crowd and gave them some swag (sweatbands etc).


Dwight Howard seems like a guy that would walk over hot coals to please his fans. He spent a long time signing autographs postgame and gave away almost everything he was wearing. Shoes, Jersey, arm sleeve... everything came off, got signed and given to a kid. He was was practically naked by the time he finished.

I work for the parent company of the team.

I was beneath the basket for games 3 and 4.

We had a lot of extra attention on us because of Darren Collison's injury from stepping on a camera man in Chicago. Lots of pressure to keep our feet behind the line.

Howard and Shaq are just in another world. Absolutely massive.

Personally, I'm more impressed by the small guys. Standing next to someone like Derrick Rose, and seeing that we are roughly the same size, it is just mind blowing to know what he is capable of.

Before the game we have to set up our cameras and make sure everything is working properly. On a good day this takes less than 10 minutes, but we need to have a fairly large buffer of time in case something goes wrong.

We also have a meeting where we run through what is going on during pre-game, time outs, half times etc. We do all the standard in game stuff (kiss cam, celebrity look-a-likes, fans racing on the court, contests, etc) but it changes from game to game.

On a day where nothing goes wrong, I've got about an hour of down time to eat something and relax before I have to be on camera.

The broadcast guys have a much more involved setup, plus pregame and postgame interviews. The do 10 hours pretty regularly.

Noodleman. keep it up. great gig you have

Cool thread and cool job.

What has been your favorite game that you witnessed live?

wtf camera guys make way more than $14/hour

One of the quirks of the job is that I have an amazing view of one basket, and a mediocre view of the other one. This time Danny Granger drove right, and fired the game winner from a few feet in front of me.

After the game, we went to center court and and I was right next to Carmello when he was yelling at Jeffries for not throwing him the ball for an impossible 35-footer with 3 tenths of second left.





Honorable Mention: Watching Grant Hill drop 34 for the Suns. For one day, he looked like a 25 year old with healthy ankles and knees.

For a lot of other stuff I make much more, but this job isn't about the money.
I would do this for free.