Sportsonics: a brief history
From 2018 to 2021, I worked as an audio technician for the Oregon Ducks and the Eugene Emeralds. Armed with my trusty Macbook and my tiny budget DJ controller, I helmed the audio production for hundreds of sporting events for both organizations. I hit the Autzen score horn for Justin Herbert bombs, turned up “Shout” for crowds mesmerized by Sabrina Ionescu’s wizardry, and spent countless hours arranging themed game day playlists & editing baseball walk-up songs. It was creative & fulfilling work.
In that time, an indomitable seed of interest was planted; how could track selection, crowd sound, and other sound-related aspects in live sports be measured and utilized? The literature on the subject seemed to be lacking; I felt there was a treasure trove of research and information waiting to be plundered.
Unfortunately, for the last seven years, my jading analysis paralysis has gotten me bogged down in listing ideas, and brainstorming, and making outlines, and building frameworks, and dancing around the subject matter rather than immersing myself in it. I’ve spent more time re-writing introductory paragraphs than I’ve spent doing actual work. A bare-bones research project on the 2021 MLB postseason is the most I have to show for my alleged passion.
In 2022, I moved to Portland, and my AV career moved into the corporate realm. It’s more sustainable, but it’s devoid of the magic of sports. My work in Eugene felt more like an art form than a job, and my current career path has me feeling like a shadow artist.
In 2023, I came up with the term sportsonics. I defined it as “the interdisciplinary field concerning the use of sound in environments of athletic performance”. Fancy, right?
At the tail end of 2024, I bought sportsonics.com to set a fire under my ass. But after an initial spark of motivation, the site went untouched for almost a year. The Squarespace bill I got 12 months later was a gut punch.
In mid 2025, I had a change of plans; I decided that Sportsonics, now capitalized, would be the name of a business whose trade would be delivering services, products, and/or research related to the subject matter I’d defined so clearly. But true to form, all this spurred on was more re-working and re-wording and re-writing.
A dark cloud of regret is looming above me, billowing and thundering and ready to follow me into my 30s. I feel an otherworldly need to create & to do. I need to smash through these walls of procrastination and over-optimization that I keep running headfirst into.
So I'm trying again. This time, I'm dropping the formality and the necessity for a perfectly polished end goal. I’m doing what feels right and good; and right now, that is to declare that
Sportsonics is a brand, a no-holds-barred label that I can put on whatever comes of this website.
