How the Chicago Bulls Pokmon-themed 2023-24 schedule release went viral -

Before the Chicago Bulls became an online conversation starter in the NBA’s offseason, they needed DeMar DeRozan’s blessing.

The organization didn’t go to its star seeking approval on a player acquisition. The team instead needed DeRozan’s permission to feature his daughter, Diar, in the release of its 2023-24 regular-season schedule video.

The theme of the video? Pokémon. Diar’s cameo delivered one of the best moments — a timely scream that mirrored her Play-In Tournament performance and helped Dad and the Bulls to victory over the Toronto Raptors. The scream was a part of the weapons of choice in the video.

“He said he enjoyed it,” Bulls vice president of content Luka Dukich said of DeRozan when asked about the presentation and his daughter’s cameo.

And DeRozan was far from the only one. When the Bulls announced their schedule last month, they went viral. They surprised and delighted fans globally with a fun, five-minute homage to a classic video game.

With an intricate recreation of the original Pokémon games that gained popularity in the late 1990s, the Bulls produced “Meet us in the GYM!”: a video with the perfect blend of nostalgia, storytelling and wit. In the video, an animated Benny the Bull journeys through the team’s schedule, battling player representatives like San Antonio Spurs No. 1 pick Victor Wembanyama, Denver Nuggets two-time MVP Nikola Jokić and Los Angeles Lakers star and NBA all-time scoring leader LeBron James. (Battling James is when Diar’s scream comes into play.)

The masses promptly ate it up.

“Bulls fans love our content. They react all the time,” Dukich said. “But it’s pretty rare to get universal acclaim on the internet for anything. I think we had this feeling that this was going to be really good.”

With the start of NBA preseason next month, the video has generated more than 2 million views across the team’s social networking platforms.

“We wanted it to feel like those old (video) games without it taking directly from them,” Dukich said. “Everything is original. Everything was something that we brainstormed.”

The project was the brainchild of Nikko Tan, digital content manager for the Bulls. Tan, who joined the franchise in 2019 after three seasons with the Atlanta Falcons, is responsible for many of the game-night photos fans see on the team’s social media platforms.

Dave Zarzynski, manager of animation and design for the Bulls, is behind the graphics. Zarzynski graduated from the University of Iowa with a graphic design degree and received an animation degree from DePaul University. Zarzynski’s test run included the video’s intro, with the Game Boy screen turning on and the audience meeting NBA commissioner Adam Silver, a play off the Pokémon character Professor Oak.

That’s all Zarzynski presented before the Bulls agreed to scrap every other idea. They knew immediately that’s the direction they should go.

“He made it look so authentic to Pokémon,” Dukich said. “Every time we saw a new version from Dave, everyone would get excited again, and we would start brainstorming more concepts and ideas we could put there for Bulls fans and beyond.”

Cait Hicks, an editor for the team’s in-house BullsTV, took the lead on sound. Because of copyright laws, the Bulls couldn’t use any audio from the Pokémon game. Every sound you hear in the video is an original creation.

Our Schedule Release video was rooted in strategy and collaboration across so many people in our building. Nothing but flowers to our squad, especially these creatives below:

Lead Design & Animator: @DaveZarz
Sound Design: @GennyRedEye
Benny the Bull as @BennyTheBull ❤️ https://t.co/c2nqm5X8SO

— Nikko Tan (@TheNikkoTan) August 18, 2023

When the content team convened in May to kick around ideas, it had some rigid requirements. The announcement had to be as creative as it was clever — and as comical as it was catchy.

Weekly brainstorming sessions were held. Approximately 20 content professionals from the team’s social media, video production and design departments gathered. They had viewing sessions where they watched their favorite schedule releases from other leagues.

Much of the inspiration came from the NFL. This year’s releases by the Tennessee Titans and the Los Angeles Chargers were hits, so the Bulls analyzed what would work for them. They found fundamental elements that would translate.

Among what made those videos enjoyable and rewatchable were the nonstop surprises, or, as Dukich called them, “Easter eggs,” that helped retain the viewer’s attention. In gaming, an Easter egg is a hidden message or feature that can enhance player experience or assist with connecting backstories.

“Schedule release day for years has been the opportunity for content teams to flex their creativity,” Dukich said. “No one actually learns anything about the schedule from these schedule release videos. It’s simply a celebratory moment.”

In that regard, every member of the Bulls’ content team deserves a bonus. Basketball operations didn’t drum up excitement easily after another relatively quiet roster offseason. The team added two projected role players in Jevon Carter and Torrey Craig, as well as a raw rookie in Julian Phillips and an international man of mystery on a two-way contract in Onuralp Bitim from Turkey. The rest of the team remains largely intact as it returns from a season where it failed to make the playoffs.

The overwhelmingly positive response from the video confirms the Bulls got it right, from the concept to the custom animation and sounds — and it took extensive research.

To ensure they wouldn’t be off-base, the Bulls went shopping. They ordered vintage Game Boy consoles from eBay, along with old Pokémon games. That’s when the real fun began.

“We had all played it, but it had been a very long time,” Dukich said. “We literally ordered the games off the internet just so we could play them and get the feel right and be accurate to what they were.”

It made all the difference.

“All the small details are really what makes this so great,” YouTube viewer FlyingBirdHawk wrote on the team’s channel.

Just before the video’s two-minute mark, Benny the Bull approaches a character and prompts a caption that reads, “We play in Cleveland on 1/15 (Jan. 15, 2024) in case you were planning a vacation …” The line is a reference to Joakim Noah’s classic zinger. It’s one of many elements with which the Bulls had fun.

Close observers will notice the video featured broadcasters Adam Amin, Stacey King, Chuck Swirsky and Bill Wennington sitting at the scorer’s table. In the video, Benny defeated Wembanyama with his popular popcorn dump routine, and Jokić was defeated by Zach “Flight 8” LaVine using “FLY” and “STEPBACK” as his weapons of choice. Also, DeRozan needed a pump fake, a clutch scream from his daughter and a jumper to defeat James and his chalk toss.

The video ends with Benny the Bull lying atop the United Center roof, holding a Game Boy as if he were playing Pokémon. When the camera zooms out, showing the majestic Chicago skyline, a caption is plastered in the middle of the screen: “TO BE CONTINUED.”

What Bulls fans should know: This won’t be the last Pokémon-themed animation by the team.

“There’s a lot we left on the cutting room floor that we can do in the future,” Dukich said.

(Photos: Mark Blinch / NBAE via Getty Images and Yoshikazu Tsuno / AFP via Getty Images)

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