Becher's Bytes: Recreating Ballhalla in five days 

Q: How do you recreate Ballhala in only 5 days?
A: You prepare for more than 30 years.

Allow me to explain.

Unlike most arenas, SAP Center wasn't purpose built for one sport. Yes, it's the home of San Jose Sharks hockey but the franchise didn't even exist when the arena was first conceived. It was designed to be a multi-purpose arena which could house virtually any kind of event, from sports to concerts to corporate keynotes.

In fact, now that the Golden State Valkyries played their first ever playoff game in SAP Center, 10 professional sports teams have played home games in the building. Can you name them all?

However, it’s one thing to have a sports team be based in a venue and yet another to retrofit the entire experience in under a week. Since the Chase Center and SAP Center use different equipment, different systems, and different software, almost everything had to be modified or reinvented. By doing this, we felt we could preserve the Valkyries home court advantage.

To prepare for this Herculean effort, SAP Center staff attended a Valkyries regular season game to understand their operations: from layout to game flow to terminology. Almost immediately, we realized that the two organizations used different words to mean similar things and at times it seemed like we were talking different languages.

To help recreate their experience, the Valkyries sent us the entire season of content (more than 1000 pieces). It took more than 76 hours just to transfer the content! Reprogramming the center scoreboard with WNBA stats and Hawkeye replay was one of the most complicated elements. The first successful test of the replay system happened at 11 a.m. on game day and the stats went live only 15 minutes before tipoff.

We were honored to host the Valkyries first-evet playoff game in their first season and made a special exception. This was the first time any other team – except the San Jose Barracuda – had used the Sharks home locker room. There were many other behind-the-scenes moments:

• Just before the game started, the control room was a sea of violet and teal, desperately trying to deal with last minute issues. One SAP Center veteran interrupted the chaos with the proclamation, “Tonight, we are one team. Let’s make everyone proud.” The group settled in and performed flawlessly.
• At some point during the first period, the game clocks installed in the visiting dressing room stopped working. Technicians quickly discovered that someone had unplugged the clocks to plug in a temporary fridge. An extension cord solved the issue.
• The SAP Center staff tracked their steps on game day and the day before. They averaged an incredible 33K steps on game day and 43K steps the day before!

Of course, the Valkyries fans were the heart of the Ballhalla South experience. Despite the change of venue, the game was sold out and just as loud. Caltrain was very busy – nearly 3 times as many fans used it than for a Sharks game. Valkyries fans were well behaved with no ejections and only a handful of incidents. They were also hungry! On average, the Valkyrie fans ate 30% more food per person than Sharks fans.

While the Valkyries ultimately lost the game in the final seconds, it was an amazing experience for everyone – the fans, the players, and the staff from both organizations who worked feverishly for 5 days to pull this off. With more than 30 years of preparation.