It takes an army of 38 staff members to create all the video, replays, and entertainment fans enjoy at Florida Panthers games at Amerant Bank Arena.
WPTV Florida Panthers Anchor and Panthers 360 Mike Trim went one-on-one with Mike Masino, vice president of entertainment and operations, who gave Trim a tour of the newly renovated control room and front-of-house operations.
WATCH: Newly renovated control room at Amerant Bank Arena brings Panthers games to life
2:17
The front-of-house operations area serves as the hub of game-day activity. It houses the public address announcer, primary producer, music operations, a spotter, and a gold horn operator. Lighting operations and building lights are also managed from the same space, along with social media stations used for interactive fan games.
"Yeah, so this is our front-of-house operations area. This is where we have our public address announcer. We have our primary producer, music operations, our spotter, and our gold horn operator. We've got our lighting operations team as well as building lights. And then up here we have some of our fun stuff. We've got social media stations for some of our interactive games," Mike Masino said.
What is now one open workspace was once 3 separate rooms.
"This was actually 3 rooms," Masino said.
"Flow communication becomes a lot easier. Direct line of sight is also helpful, and it actually created some more space for the operators," Masino said.
The tour also included the broadcast control room — the engine room of the entire production.
"Now we've got the actual broadcast control room; this is where the real magic happens," Masino said.
Inside, Mark serves as the technical director, and Scott is the director. Masino compared the director's role to one familiar to those in television news.
"Mark who's TDing, and you've got Scott who is our director. Our director, just like in news, they're actually calling the cameras, calling the angles. Queuing videos," Masino said.
When Trim asked how the team handles milestone moments — whether anticipated or unexpected — Masino said the control room is always plugged in and prepared.
"We're directly plugged in with our public relations team and our communications team who communicates that milestone to us. We're prepared ahead of time," Masino said.
Masino noted that the 38-person team is a critical part of the operation, pointing to significant growth in both staff size and talent.
"We've doubled the staff. Talent level is continuing to increase every year, and it's really become a wonderful, wonderful team," Masino said.
"They're on it. They're locked in all game, but it's what they do, and it's what they love to do," Masino said.
The first pre-season game for the Panthers also marked a significant technology upgrade for the arena.
"So tonight's actually a milestone for us, moving from a baseband video infrastructure where you're hard patching cables to a networked routable video infrastructure," Masino said.
"All of our cabling throughout the building was replaced to bring us to the highest quality broadcast infrastructure that sports are doing these days," Masino said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.