Are You Ready for Some Football?

When the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers were battling in the Super Bowl this year at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium, TV viewers at home were treated to an epic overtime battle, a memorable Usher halftime show and a forgettable batch of commercials.

Those lucky enough to watch the game in person — nearly 62,000 people — got all the hard-hitting action in person. They also got an intense, Super Bowl-sized version of the exciting in-game productions that have become part of the stadium experience throughout the NFL. Pumping music, dramatic lighting, instant highlights and replays on massive video screens, on-field post-game interviews and, of course, the trophy presentation to the victors.

All of it was choreographed from a room inside Allegiant Stadium by a team led by Justin Lange (‘12 M.A.) , a graduate of Gonzaga’s master's program in athletic and sport management.

Reflecting on his path from Gonzaga to working at one of the biggest sports spectacles on the planet, Lange still sounded a little amazed at the circuitous route that took him from a Spokane classroom to the NFL.

“I thought I was going to be an athletic administrator,” Lange says of his goals when entering the GU program at the same time he was holding down a job in Gonzaga’s athletic department making videos and graphics. He thought: “I’m going to work in the video department for this many years, and then I’ll become an assistant athletic director, and then I’ll become an associate AD. Then, maybe I can try and get an AD job somewhere. That’s where my head was.”

Unbeknownst to Lange, his video skill set, passion for learning and innate interest in tech pursuits would change the course of his career dramatically. After working in broadcast journalism a couple of years, he joined GU’s athletic department just as sports video was getting massively popular, “when people were just starting to go to the website to view highlights, and social media was starting to explode.” After earning his master’s, he joined the University of Minnesota as the Big 10 school’s live production coordinator.

“I just focused on doing live stuff, and I fell in love with it,” Lange says.

After a couple of years, one of his bosses took a job with U.S. Bank Stadium as the Minnesota Vikings were preparing to open a new facility, and he hired Lange as broadcast operations coordinator. Suddenly, Lange was working in a $10 million production facility, an “NFL-caliber room where the onus is to put on a broadcast-level show, every show,” combining audio, graphics and video from 12 cameras capturing the action on the field.

“I learned a lot. I broke a lot of stuff. And I fixed a lot of stuff. It really taught me what I needed to know,” Lange says. "When the opportunity came to go to Allegiant Stadium, I was ready from a technical perspective.”

Having already helped open one new NFL stadium in Minneapolis, it was natural for Lange to head to the new Las Vegas stadium, joining the project in 2020 and working Raiders games during the regular season. The Super Bowl was Lange’s last game there, as he’s moved back to Minnesota to work remotely for an event and technology consulting company and spend more time with his family.

“I love what I do, and every day I wake up super thankful,” Lange says. But he’s excited at the prospect of working from home and being more present for his wife and son.

While he might never be an athletic director like he once imagined, Lange credits his Gonzaga education with giving him the perspective to see the value in pursuing unexpected paths, all the way to the Super Bowl.

“Being in that Gonzaga program forced me to think about things outside my world, about safety, operations, and security, and marketing, all these things I didn’t specialize in,” Lange says. “Now when I’m in meetings with executives in those categories, I’ve got some level of understanding.

“Did I learn anything from a technical perspective about what I’m doing now? Absolutely not. But it put me in a position to be a successful leader. And that is the most important part to me.”

More Zags With NFL Experience 

Peter Fonfara (’04, ’05 M.Acc) is the finance director for the Seattle Seahawks.

Michael Sattler (’15 finance, ’19 M.A. athletic and sportadministration) is a senior accountant for the Seattle Seahawks.

Brandon Lim (’17, public relations) spent time with the NBA’s L.A. Clippers and Phoenix Suns before becoming the Seattle Seahawks social content manager. In November 2023, he joined the NFL as manager for player social marketing.

Matt Peterson (’17 public relations, ’19 M.A. athletic and sport administration) is a football operations assistant for the Washington Commanders.

Matthew Beaird (’19, marketing and journalism) has worked for the Seattle Seahawks since 2019, starting as an intern and now a full-time direct marketing specialist.

Tyler Tran (’21, finance, minor in sports management) has worked for the Detroit Lions for two years, most recently as a membership services account executive.

Avyion Fisher (’22, M.A. athletic and sport administration) has worked for the Seattle Seahawks in several roles, including as a DEI intern and football operations assistant.