SAN FRANCISCO — Because professional hype man Franco Finn has been so loud for so long, the pulsing soundtrack of the Warriors dynasty sometimes gets recognized in public. They may not know his face, but his voice rings a decibel.
It happens sometimes at Costco. Finn will say something innocuous to his wife — “Can you believe these peaches?” — and suddenly a stranger’s head will swivel, eyes widening.
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“Someone from another aisle will turn and say, ‘Oh, my God! I knew it was you!'” Franco said. “Like, they can hear me across the way.”
If he really wanted to blow his cover, he could … just talk louder. Because for two decades, the Alaska Airlines employee by day has been the Warriors’ sultan of shout by night. His official duties for home games include belting out pregame announcements, bellowing starting lineups and beseeching 18,000 fans to make noise. He’s the guy the Warriors count on to bring more cowbell.
This weekend, though, the roles are reversed. The NBA is giving him a shout-out.
Finn was selected for All-Star duty in Salt Lake City, an honor he’s been craving for years in part because of the poignant footnote that comes with it. He’s the first Asian American to be tapped for the role. The son of Filipino immigrants will serve as the in-arena emcee for the Rising Stars Challenge on Friday and All-Star Saturday Night featuring the slam-dunk contest, 3-point showdown and skills challenge.
Longtime Warriors hype man Franco Finn was selected to serve as the in-game emcee for some of the All-Star action this weekend. This helps explain why. @francofinn #Warriors
— Daniel Brown (@BrownieAthletic) February 17, 2023
It’s enough to make even a hype man take a few extra seconds to find the right words. Finn feels this moment for his fellow Filipino Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
“I wear that proudly, and I wear that on my sleeve,” Finn said.
Finn’s mother, Angeles Lucente, is from the Philippines. The stepfather who helped raise him, the late George Finn, was Irish. Finn, 46, knows from experience that people across the globe watch Warriors basketball on NBA League Pass, and he gets emails from fans in the Philippines. Parents send Finn videos of their children mimicking his starting-lineup theatrics. He knows there are fans in Asia who will watch the NBA All-Star festivities in part because of his groundbreaking appearance.
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“I have a lot on my shoulders,” Finn said. “These kids are like 6, 7, 8 years old, and they literally copy my introduction. It’s so flattering, an honor. And they’re like, ‘Oh my God! You’re in the NBA! You introduce Steph Curry every night!’ They love Warriors basketball in Asia. And in the Philippines, they in particular love Steph Curry. He’s right there with Manny Pacquiao. There are little kids in the Philippines right now who can shoot lights out. They’re shooting 3s.”
Actor Vin Diesel will handle the player intros for the All-Star Game on Sunday, but if they need an idea for yet another sequel to the “Fast & Furious” collection, they could just follow Finn around for a night, as The Athletic did before the Warriors’ game against Oklahoma City on Feb. 6.
Finn’s over-the-top energy is not an act. He walks as if leading a fast break and talks as if he has amps for lungs. Our Q&A was mostly just A. I asked Finn if he was caffeinated.
“No,” he shrugged. “This is just how I am.”
In this job, the kinetic pace is a plus, even three hours before tipoff. Finn’s night starts with a production meeting with 10 or so other members of the so-called Dub Squad. Finn comes equipped with a clipboard and a healthy stack of index cards filled out with mini-scripts for each of his promotional announcements. He later would ignore every single card because he commits them to memory with preternatural ease.
“These are just props,” he said of the stack.
It’s hectic on this Monday evening because it’s “Bruce Lee Night,” and the daughter of the martial arts icon, Shannon Lee, is in the house for the occasion. Also there is Simu Liu, the star of the Marvel movie “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” who is scheduled to ring the ritual pregame bell at midcourt and needs a rousing introduction.
“That’ll be a great pic if you want to grab any photos,” the helpful hype man says. “Because you never know who’s going to stop by — celebrities, dignitaries, politicians, athletes.” Indeed, notable bell ringers since Chase Center opened include actress Rita Moreno, actor Jon Hamm, rapper E-40, San Francisco Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford … and Santa Claus.
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But the real stars are the Warriors players, which is why Finn treats the starting lineups on his clipboard as sacred text. He writes them out by hand, a superstition he said in explaining why the Warriors have won four NBA titles since the 2014-15 season.
“This is the good luck,” said Finn, tapping his lineup notes. “I think this is why the Warriors win championships, because I literally handwrite every single intro. It’s never typed. I handwrite.
“You see how ratty this is? It’s because this is the starting lineup from our championship years, and I haven’t changed it. It stays with me all day.”
In this case, the notes really do come in handy. Players care how they are introduced and sometimes offer stage directions. Finn used to introduce former center Andrew Bogut “from the University of Utah” until the 7-footer pulled him aside one day and said, “Mate, can you do me a favor?”
Bogut wanted the hype man to switch out his college in favor of his hometown of Melbourne, Australia, and he wanted Melbourne pronounced with an Australian accent, not with the Americanized ending that sounds like ‘“born.”
“He said, ‘Can you say from Mel-bun, Australia? You gotta say it like that. Mel-bun, Australia,'” Finn said. “I never used the Utah introduction again.”
These days, he doesn’t have favorite names so much as he has favorite initials. Give him a last name that starts with a “P” or a “B,” and he’s got a runway cleared for takeoff.
“Oh, yeah. Jordan puh-puh-puh-Poole! I love to do the little emphasis on the P,'” Finn said. “When we had Harrison Barnes, it was Harrison ba-ba-ba-Barnes!
“Kevon Looney! Looney is a fun one, too. In the middle. I extend the ‘Loooooooney,’ and everyone does that, right?”
In most NBA arenas, the public-address announcer handles the glamorous starting lineup duties. For the PA peeps, that’s the time to shine, the proverbial isolation play at crunch time. But years ago, Finn elbowed his way into the role almost by accident. He was summoned to a corporate breakfast function at the Marriott Hotel that trotted out Coach Don Nelson and the rest of the players.
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Finn was there as an emcee. On a lark, he said, organizers asked Finn if he could do the player introductions in starting-lineup style, and he channeled his inner Michael Buffer.
“I did the entire roster,” Finn said. “I didn’t realize that was an audition. That breakfast event ended up making me the actual introduction guy for the team. They said, ‘Why don’t you start doing the starting lineup now.’ And I said, ‘Wait, you want me to do this during all the games?’
“I have to tell you, it has opened up so many doors for me.”
Underrated key to Warriors’ victory was some quality bell-ringing by @SimuLiu with help from hypeman @francofinn #MarvelStudios
— Daniel Brown (@BrownieAthletic) February 7, 2023
Do purists at the game ever tell him to pipe the hell down?
“All the time,” Finn said. “You’ve got all the curmudgeons that are diehard basketball fans. ‘Hey, why do you play music? Why is there always a loud guy in my ear? I just want to watch the game!’
“You’re never gonna please the people, the fundamentalists who just love the game. But what I tell people is: Look, the NBA is an experience. It’s entertainment. It’s more than just the game. When timeouts happen, my show is the show within the show.”
As a senior at Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep in San Francisco, his classmates voted him as the student body spirit commissioner. Until then, Finn was oblivious to his destiny. But he was soon called upon to whip up the crowd before a game against longtime rival St. Ignatius College Prep.
He said there were probably 1,200 students in the gym.
“I’m like any teenage kid. I didn’t want to speak in front of my peers,” Finn said. “But you know what? I did a pretty good job. I remember I was dressed up as Deion Sanders with a headband, and I pretended I was Prime Time. I had this alter ego … like flash! Dash! Energy! That was awesome. And from then on, I kinda said, ‘Oh, this public speaking thing? I guess I can do it.”
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His big breakout after graduating with a communications degree from Santa Clara University in 1999 involved hyping pop sensations. Warming up the crowds for the likes of NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera prepared him for his future of working alongside NBA rock stars. Finn’s main job then was at Radio Disney, where his early duties included promotion, production and sales.
But his specialty was live events, and his world changed thanks to a Bay Area concert stop by Hilary Duff, the actress and singer of “Lizzie McGuire” fame.
Duff performed at the Oakland Coliseum that year. There was no opening act. It was just Finn — as “Duff-man,” wandering around the stage and geeking up the crowd, much of it ad-libbed. By the time Duff came out for her opening number, it was closer to pandemonium than Nickelodeon.
As it turns out, several Warriors executives were in the crowd with their children. They found Finn backstage and asked him to audition to be the in-arena host for the upcoming season.
“The rest is history,” Finn said.
When he’s really rolling, when he’s vanished fully into his alter ego like Superman stepping out of a phone booth, Finn’s body pulsates with an ambient noise. It’s right around the 7 p.m. PT tipoff, and Finn is bouncing up and down behind the scorer’s table, holding the microphone and watching the hand signal that serves as his cue.
When he gets it, Finn’s vocal pyrotechnics begin. It’s poetry on steroids.
DUB NATION
ARE YOU READY?
WAH-WAH-WAH-WARRIORS
ITTTTT’S, GO TIME!
LET’S GET UP AND MAKE SOME NOI-SE!
GET UP ON YOUR FEET
AND MEET
YOUR NBA DEFENDING CHAMPION
GOLDEN STATE (GRRRRR) WARRIORS!
Then he introduces the players one by one, with Draymond Green giving way to Andrew Wiggins to Jordan puh-puh-puh-Poole and down the line. The sound is guttural and raw, as if it starts from somewhere in Finn’s previous life. This is the stuff that screams are made of.
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The crowd is indeed hyped. When he’s done, Finn calmly daps a few friendly fists and returns to human form.
This is a journey that began when Angeles, a recent widow, arrived in the Bay Area from the Philippines in the 1970s. She moved here just in time for the Warriors’ first NBA title in 1975 and embraced American culture by becoming a basketball fan in the age of Rick Barry.
Finn was born in 1977, and it should be no surprise that he was a hyper kid. He said didn’t want to go to sleep … like, ever. He wanted to stay up, conveniently ignoring that he had school in the morning.
So mother and son struck a deal. “You can stay up as long as the Warriors game is on. And then you can go to sleep. Is that a deal?” she told him.
Angeles now is 76 and still living in San Francisco. She won’t be able to make the trip to the All-Star Game festivities this weekend, but it’s safe to say her son will be wide awake and on full alert. Thanks to his historic duties, so will everybody else in the crowd.
“I am literally working for my home team, my dream team that my mom introduced to me since I was a kid,” Finn said. “I’m a son of an immigrant who came here for the American dream. And I’m living the American dream right now. It’s just been amazing.”
(Top photo of Franco Finn: Daniel Brown / The Athletic)
