The Michigan State men’s basketball team had just defeated a talented Rutgers team in the Breslin Center and Tom Izzo was finishing up his postgame press conference.

“It's helping us win games; I promise you that,” Coach Izzo said about the crowd and MSU's marketing team. “So, anybody listening out there that's driving home or wherever you are, thank you.”

It was a shout-out from a Hall of Fame basketball coach to the fans – and to the Spartan Athletics team members who make the whole thing run smoothly from before the game to after the game and everything in between.

A home-court advantage is something that many people seemingly take for granted. Of course, the Breslin crowd is going to show up. Of course, it’s going to be loud. Of course, it’s going to help the home team pull out the victory.

But behind the scenes, there are many MSU employees doing their part to make it all happen, adjusting with the times, putting in new strategies, and always trying to stay one step ahead of complacency.

In past years, when the opposing team at the Breslin Center wanted to quiet the home crowd after the Spartans went on a run or were building some momentum, all they had to do was call a timeout and that would do it. The Breslin crowd would settle down a bit and the game atmosphere would typically reset.

That’s not the case these days.

This season, Michigan State’s brand and marketing team has introduced a new position to men’s and women’s basketball game days this season – the in-arena host/hostess – and, from all accounts, it has had a significant effect on the crowd engagement.

To see an example of the impact that the new in-arena emcees have, one would need to look no further than when top-ranked Purdue visited the Breslin last month. The Spartans had just taken the lead and there were very few seconds left on the clock. The crowd was rocking, and the visiting Boilermakers took a timeout – they had to draw up a play, of course, but also needed to calm down the raucous crowd.

But this is the exact time when the new in-arena host earned his pay. He grabbed the microphone and led the crowd in "Go-Green-Go-White" chants and – in combination with the Breslin DJ – kept the crowd hyped up throughout the timeout. It was still loud when Purdue went to inbound the ball.

The Spartans ended up losing the game that afternoon, but there was no blame that could be placed on the crowd – they had given it all they had.

That’s just one example of how the new in-arena hosts impact the entire game-day experience at Michigan State. From the introductions at the beginning of the games, to the timeout fan cams, to the halftime entertainment, to the introduction of sponsorships and promotions, these ladies and gentlemen – TG the Host and KevKnows on the men’s side and Kelsey Weir and Rhyan Neco on the women’s side – are essentially the hype men and hype women for the basketball teams.

They read the crowd, they interact, they see what energy is there and they try to bounce it back at them – or increase it. It’s less science, more art, and these four are definitely artists. They have an outline, of course – what’s up next, who’s coming around the bend – but they are given a lot of latitude to get the job done.

Gone are the days of a public announcer reading the sponsor script or the T-shirt toss promotion or the mini-ball toss phrasing. No offense, Jeremy, you did a great job, but the emcees are part of the show now.

And it’s working.

The energy is there. The crowd reaction is there. The ability to go with the flow of the game and know what needs to come next is what makes these four emcees good at what they do.

At one point during the men’s basketball game vs Rutgers, a horn was stuck in the on position and there was a nearly five-minute long delay in the game while it was being fixed. Cue the in-arena hosts for some live entertainment, some "Go-Green-Go-White" chants, and a sing-a-long to arena favorite “Stacy’s Mom.”

It was all there, and it worked – the crowd was entertained and the energy in the building didn’t die off. The Spartan players pulled out the victory.

All in a day’s work for Neco, Weir, KevKnows and TG the Host.

The backstory as to how the Breslin Center emcees came about traces back to the women’s team last season.

Last year, Julie Dombroski – the director of basketball operations & technology for the MSU women’s basketball team – jumped in to get the crowd pumped up during the game. She grabbed the microphone and engaged with the fans.

People were responsive.

And MSU's marketing team took notice.

LaRhonda Burley is the executive senior associate athletic director of marketing, brand and revenue generation at Michigan State. During planning discussions for the upcoming season, Burley, Dombroski, and the team decided to take what was working and build on it. How do we take that and make it a structured position?

"[Dombroski did] a great job, but she has her own responsibilities during the game," said Burley. "Let’s actually hire someone who can do this as part of our game day experience.”

That’s when Weir and Neco came on board, taking turns with the women’s games. They quickly proved during the early part of the women’s season that this idea had legs.

Rhyan Neco comes to the Breslin as a first-timer in this role, but she has done a lot of vocal work in the past – as a voiceover professional, a narrator for audiobooks, even an announcer for boxing matches. Neco graduated from Vanderbilt University, and – coming up in an SEC program – she saw the loyalty of college fans and fell in love with it.

“It’s nostalgic doing the announcing,” Neco said, who grew up playing AAU basketball and coaching. “I love the loyalty I see at Michigan State. I hope they continue to resonate with me on the microphone and keep the energy alive.”

Kelsey Weir attended Michigan State from 2007 to 2011 – “The teams were really good, we beat Michigan a lot, it was a fun time to be there” – and studied communications and public relations.

Weir interned for the Detroit Tigers in 2012 where she was able to do some in-game hosting during spring training. She took that skill set to the Grand Rapids Drive and now she’s enhancing the home-court advantage at her alma mater for the women’s basketball team.

“The home fans can change the outcome of the game and I do believe that the energy from the crowd helps the performance on the court,” Weir said. “My personal goal is to bring a friendly and fun vivaciousness to the game, just something different that adds to the entertainment aspect of it.”

Weir and Neco started doing women’s games in October and the results and feedback gave Burley the confidence to do the same for the men’s team.

“After we had that rolling, we thought, let’s give it a shot on the men’s side,” Burley said . “And we unveiled it for the Villanova game.”

That’s when TG the Host and KevKnows stepped in to the Breslin Center, mic in hand, ready to pump up the crowd.

“College energy is so pure, you can’t buy college energy, it’s undefeated,” said TG the Host, who graduated from Michigan State and is also an in-game host for the Detroit Pistons’ G League affiliate, the Motor City Cruise. “I knew what I was getting into … my alma mater … this is just pure blood green energy.”

KevKnows has this same role for the NBA’s Detroit Pistons and really appreciates both the similarities and differences he notices between the two stages.

“I give the same energy no matter what stage I’m on, everyone deserves to have an incredible show,” KevKnows said. “Although I’m not in control of the scoreboard, I do feel as though I play a role in the energy. You’ve got some die-hard Pistons fans and some die-hard Spartan fans – if I had to find a difference, you see the loyalty from the fan perspective a bit more at Michigan State. That allegiance. You’ve got people who, for generations, have bled green and white, and you can really see that on game day. Both are incredible fan bases, both are great arenas and historic franchises to be a part of.”

TG the Host agrees.

“You can walk into the Breslin any night and it’s gonna be 10 of 10 energy,” said TG the Host, who graduated from MSU in 2016 with a degree in human development and family studies. “Just being able to add to that, bring my own flavor, my own personality to my home school is a beautiful thing.”

KevKnows appreciates being a part of something new.

“This in-game arena host position has never been done in the history of Michigan State Athletics,” KevKnows said. “So to be a part of that – to work with LaRhonda [Burley] and Meagan [Hogan] and Ashton [Henderson] and everyone on the team – it’s been a great experience over all.”

Burley knows that Michigan State has a great brand and it’s her team’s job to take what has been built over the history of the program and shepherd it into the future.

“[MSU has] really great fan energy,” Burley said. “How can we help evolve that? Enhance that? When you have a great brand like Michigan State basketball, both on the men’s and women's side, there isn’t a ton of brand work to do. How can we bring something that’s a little different to help enhance what’s already here?”

When the compliments on the new strategies make their way to her, Burley is quick to deflect the praise back to her team. The members of the Spartan game day marketing team – Meagan Hogan (who was recently promoted to assistant athletics director), Jim Donatelli, Sam Munson, Allison Zwarka, and all of the Spartan Vision team members – have worked tirelessly to continue to improve the fan experience at the various sporting events around campus, including men’s and women’s basketball this winter.

“Meagan Hogan – you see her at the scorer’s table calling the game – she does a phenomenal job,” Burley said. “[Donatelli] has led the Izzone programming for over ten years and has been the person behind the scenes in building it into what it is today.

“Munson joined the team to support and expand the overall student marketing efforts across all sports and has been a huge part of the Izzone atmosphere. Zwarka oversees fan engagement for women’s basketball and was a big part in bringing the in-game [hostesses] to that program.”

And, if you’ve ever been to a basketball game, you already know that MSU has a professional-level production team in Spartan Vision, who oversee in-house video and game production.

“With anything new, it takes time for people to adjust,” Burley said. “Do we tweak it from game to game? Our goal is to have something for everyone. This is a new brand element.”

The marketing team is focused on doing fewer things and doing them well, rather than doing too many things at a mediocre level. Their focus goes beyond the revenue sports on campus.

“It’s important that we focus on all of our sports, not just our basketball programs,” Burley said. “We’ll see some cool fan engagement opportunities [in all sports on campus].”

Will that move to football ever in the future?

Burley says we’ll have to wait and see.

“We are always looking for ways to engage our fans differently,” she said with a grin, not giving away her teams’ intentions. “It’s about Michigan State, but it’s also about the community.”

And she gets support from the very top of the athletic department.

“[Michigan State Vice President/Athletics Director] Alan Haller is very supportive of our programming," Burley said. "He certainly has a voice in everything we do, but he also gives us latitude to bring him new, fresh ideas. He’s very student-athlete centric.”

It’s a new world out there in sports marketing.

MSU’s marketing team is up against in-home theaters, huge HD televisions, and sports being broadcast to mobile devices for fans on the go. They are determined, though, to make the in-person experience special. From the new in-arena hosts, to exclusive in-stadium video presentations, to fan giveaways and sponsor promotions, to even a new unique way of introducing the team that engages each any every fan through the flashlight app on their smartphone, MSU’s marketing teams are doing what it takes to stay at the top of their game.

And they hope you come along for the ride.

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