Big 12’s process of raining confetti onto champs involves, wait for it, cannons
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- Wald Fireworks installs overhead cannons; a remote trigger releases streamers.
- Big 12 coordinates with T‑Mobile Center and ESPN to ensure smooth presentation.
- New Era prints winners' apparel overnight or by the semifinals; losers' gear returned.
When the confetti and streamers come down from the rafters in arenas, it’s always a picturesque moment for the champions of any sport.
But this magic that unfolds as athletes hoist trophies, where does it come from?
For the Big 12 tournaments, including the men’s event concluding on Saturday, the confetti isn’t stashed in a bag by some boogeyman in the ceiling of T-Mobile Center.
Kansas City-area fireworks supplier Wald Fireworks, based in the metro since 1924, sets up cannons in the overhead of the arena the night before the championship. Streamers in the champion’s colors descend with the simple pull of a trigger on a remote, making the process simple.
Cannons on the court shoot additional confetti, some of it silver-colored and shaped like the Big 12 logo.
“It’s a very choreographed dance,” Katie Ristow, the Big 12’s associate vice president of brands, told The Star. “Anything we can do to help spread that championship moment is important to us.”
Championship shirts and hats, provided by New Era, are immediately handed out to members of the winning team. The Big 12 Conference has the clothing printed overnight, or by the semifinals.
The losing team’s paraphernalia is sent back to the manufacturer, where it is likely destroyed, Ristow said.
The conference works with T-Mobile Center and ESPN to make sure the yearly process runs smoothly, as it should appear.
Behind-the-scenes effort ensures the end result looks effortless.
“We know how special these moments are,” Ristow said. “We’ve evolved championship celebrations ... It’s something that we want to continue to evolve.”
