Jul. 24—When Logan Angelo stopped playing baseball at Creston High School, the 2013 graduate gained his first job in entertainment production as public address announcer at the home baseball games.
While announcing the game in the press box, Angelo also served as a DJ, playing digital music tracks via computerized software. At this year’s team banquet, coach Brandon Phipps praised current announcer Cory Latham for his work in providing “a true entertainment event along with announcing the baseball game, like you expect from a big-time venue.”
Fast forward 13 years, and the venue doesn’t get any bigger than where Angelo worked for more than five weeks this summer at the Houston venue for seven FIFA World Cup matches. Angelo was hired by FIFA as stadium entertainment technical operations manager at the home of the NFL Houston Texans (labeled Houston Stadium by FIFA’s non-sponsor policy, but officially now NRG Stadium after several years as Reliant Stadium.)
“This was the largest sports event ever,” Angelo said, “when you consider it was held in 16 stadiums across three countries (United States, Mexico and Canada), with 48 teams playing a total of 104 matches over 39 days (June 11 to July 19). It’s even a larger scale than the Olympics, when you consider the number of fans traveling for this international sports event. And, it turned out to be a successful event. The cities did a great job as hosts.”
For perspective, the World Cup final between Argentina and Spain averaged 66.4 million television viewers in the U.S. on Fox and Telemundo combined. Other than Super Bowls, this is the largest sports audience since the 1994 Winter Olympics (skaters Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan).
Angelo used up his summer vacation days working the “side gig” for FIFA, calling it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. His work as director of in-venue production for the University of Texas in Austin, and relationship with production personnel for the local Major League Soccer club, Austin FC, led to the chance to interview for a FIFA position during the World Cup.
“Through some people with Austin FC, the group hiring on behalf of FIFA for the World Cup reached out to me,” Angelo said. “I went through an audition process in a couple of interviews. They asked about my background and what I excelled at in the area of in-stadium technical production. It was sometime last December when I got the offer to work in Houston.”
Angelo was hired on a flat-rate contract basis for his 38-day stint in Houston. The producer for stadium entertainment operations was Nathan Carrington of England, who basically had the position that Angelo currently has at Texas. In this situation at Houston, Angelo had a chance to serve under the producer in a role that concentrated on more specific tasks.
“The International Broadcast Center for the World Cup was housed in Dallas, and everything that happened in the 16 stadiums in three countries was routed to that IBC,” Angelo said. “I handled the connection between our site in Houston and the IBC in Dallas. For the first three weeks on the job, we were in Houston making sure everything was working logistically so we could have that direct communication to Dallas for all of our audio and video feeds. I also handled all of the technology that we used to produce the in-stadium entertainment.”
That can include everything from the pre-match ceremony and national anthems, to video displays, live entertainment on platforms in the stadium and segments of entertainment during pauses in the action, such as interviews in the fan sections by local stadium “hosts.”
Lasting memory
Angelo vividly recalls the most memorable moment of his time working for FIFA, just prior to the start of the Round of 32 match between Brazil and Japan. (Houston hosted a total of seven matches — five at the group stage level, and two knockout rounds.)
“By that time I was feeling pretty confident that we had things in order, so I stepped out of the control room into a section of fans,” Angelo said. “I went out for the national anthem sequence and pre-match ceremony. I stood among the Brazil supporters as they were taking it all in. When the Brazil anthem started, the guy next to me, about my age (31), tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to his arm. Full goosebumps. It was that big of a moment to him. What’s cool about that is that my work was behind that moment for him! That’s the whole drive for this. That’s tangible. That’s why I prefer in-stadium work to television work. You can feel directly how the show is affecting people in real time.”
Even though his full-time work is in one of the most passionate fan bases in college football, Angelo said the experience showed him that the World Cup galvanizes entire nations behind their team to a degree beyond fan bases in the United States.
“World Cup passion can’t be replicated,” Angelo said. “For these fans, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime moment to be there. They mark the moments of their lives by these World Cups every four years. In Houston we had Portugal twice, and Cristiano Ronaldo is a god to those fans. In his second match he scored two goals and the crowd went ballistic.”
Angelo said it was interesting to see the fans from different nations and cultures during his stay in Houston. On match days, the passion was always at a fever pitch.
“It’s such a collective,” Angelo said. “The whole country is together during this. You’re born into it. I stood among people covered head to toe in Brazil colors, hanging banners of people who fought for political change in their country, not just sports-related. They are trying to tell you that they believe in their country and wholeheartedly support their team. U.S. soccer doesn’t feel that way to us. But to them, how they do in football (soccer) proves the legitimacy of their nation.”
Cousins career paths
Coincidentally, as Angelo was getting started in entertainment production and participating in high school musicals, his cousin the same age, Adam Bochart, was on a similar career path. (Their mothers, Debbie Hulett and Brenda Bochart, are sisters.) Bochart was recently featured in the News Advertiser about his work directing and designing in-stadium videos for the popular Savannah Bananas baseball team.
“It is kind of crazy that we grew up together and ended up in similar paths and industries,” Angelo said. “We were both drummers; we both were video editors. I was doing theater and musicals, and Adam helped with the technical side of the musicals. When the Bananas played in Round Rock (Texas) this season we got together along with our cousin Conner Hulett (his father Roger is a sibling of Debbie Hulett and Brenda Bochart).”
Angelo gained a myriad of experience in marketing and creative production as a student at Iowa State University, where he also served as a football team equipment manager and on the student coaching staff. He worked at different times for the Iowa Barnstormers indoor football team, the Iowa Wild hockey team and the Iowa Wolves professional basketball team at Wells Fargo Arena, now named Casey’s Center.
“The minor league sports teams in Des Moines don’t generate huge numbers of fans, but when you also include the Iowa Cubs baseball team, it’s a great environment for people who want to learn how to do these things at a high level,” Angelo said. “It’s a great place to grow up in that respect.”
When Angelo was a 19-year-old college student working at events at Wells Fargo Arena, his technology manager was Andy Schmidt. Angelo had been working in Fort Worth for TCU football one year when Schmidt called Angelo with an offer.
“He was starting a new arena in Fort Worth called Dickies Arena, and he brought me over to work for him,” Angelo explained. “I was his number two guy in designing the technology and production. The arena opened in 2019, and I was there until 2023, when I took the Texas job. The Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, which comprises 27 rodeos in 25 days, was our main tenant in the arena. The other 11 months we hosted all kinds of concerts, family shows and entertainment events like you see at Casey’s Center in Des Moines.”
Angelo says it’s a thrill to put on a big-time show each Saturday for home football games in front of 110,000 passionate fans in Austin each fall. When Texas joined the SEC and the former Longhorn Network was discontinued, all technical entertainment production had to be done “in-house,” so Angelo was among those brought on board to put it into action.
Austin City Limits, a weekly musical entertainment program on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), is just one example of Austin’s reputation as a live music mecca. Angelo knows some of their technical production crew. He loves living in that environment, but with it comes some pressure to produce a big-time atmosphere.
“Austin is the live music capital of the world, so you expect a show when you come to Austin,” Angelo said. “In the old days all you got for production was the call of the plays, the score and the time, and the marching band at halftime. Now, it’s a full-scale entertainment show over several hours. It’s massive. As the producer, I’m on the headset in the control room with all of our crew, directly communicating with the PA announcer and two designated camera posts. I’m letting them know what’s coming next.”
Troubleshooting and reacting to unexpected glitches in the production occupies much of Angelo’s time during game day.
“My biggest responsibility is to be calm when things go wrong,” Angelo said. “Nothing will ever go according to plan completely. I’m saying, ‘now we need to do this next, because this (show segment) isn’t working.’ It’s like I’m the head coach, and the assistant coaches are pushing the buttons. We joke that we communicate on headsets like the coaching staff.”
So, now that he’s worked at a World Cup venue, what’s next?
“The Summer Olympics are in Los Angeles in 2028 and I’m really pushing hard to be there doing the same thing,” Angelo said. “That’s a really special event in this country.”
