From the court to the booth, my journey with the Harlem Globetrotters is one of the most meaningful chapters in my twenty-one years as a voice-over and live-announcing professional. It started in 2017, wrapped around one of the hardest seasons of my life, and came back around in 2026 in a way I never could have scripted. Some stories write themselves. This is one of them.
In September of 2017, my grandmother passed away. Around that same time, I began training with the Harlem Globetrotters for my first major live announcing gig. Grief and excitement occupied the same space in my chest for weeks. I was confident in my abilities, but I was also scared in a way that only driving down a new road will make you feel. Traveling city to city, arena to arena, with no real blueprint for what each stop would look like — that was my classroom.
Every Arena Was a New Test
The layout changed constantly. Some nights we performed in venues that doubled as hockey rinks, and the cold coming off the ice was something I felt in my bones before the first announcement ever left my mouth. Other nights the acoustics in a packed basketball arena would swallow my voice whole if I let it. I learned quickly that a live announcer has to read the room before the room reads you. The Harlem Globetrotters put that pressure on me. They gave me that education. Every performance sharpened something in me that I carry into every event I announce today.
Live announcing is not a skill you develop in a studio. It’s a real-time experience, in front of real people, with real stakes attached to every word. The Harlem Globetrotters were the organization that first handed me those stakes at the highest level, and I will always be grateful for that. They are one of the most recognized and beloved organizations in the world, and they trusted a voice like mine to represent them night after night. That trust helped me grow.
A Full Circle Moment in 2026
Fast forward to 2026, and a promoter reached out to me to produce a commercial for the Harlem Globetrotters’ show in Athens, Greece on April 5th. The organization has been on the road for one hundred years. The fact that they chose to celebrate that milestone in Athens, and that a promoter connected my name to that moment, felt like the universe closing a loop. I no longer work directly for the Harlem Globetrotters. My work now lives across the country, serving clients who know my name and trust my voice for sports events, award shows, conferences, weddings, and civil rights events. Still, cutting that commercial brought everything back in the best possible way.
This is what voice over makes possible. It allows the past and the present to converge at this moment. Call me Matty Ice. The skills I built on those cold arena floors in 2017 are the same skills that made me the right choice for a commercial in 2026. Voice over is a long game, and moments like this one are the proof.
What the Harlem Globetrotters Taught Me About Live Announcing
The Harlem Globetrotters are not just a basketball team. They are a performance. They are energy and precision wrapped inside entertainment, and my job as the announcer was to match that energy without stepping on it. Working those shows taught me how to listen as much as I speak. It taught me that the voice is an instrument, and how to make live music.
Nine years of live announcing have taken me to a lot of rooms. From the court to the booth has never just been a phrase for me. It is a description of a real journey that started with loss. I grew through discipline, and continue growing through the relationships and reputation I’ve built one event at a time. The Harlem Globetrotters gave me the first stage. Every stage since then has been built on what I learned there.
If you are looking for a live announcer or a voice over professional, you have found him. I’ve tested my craft in some of the biggest, loudest, and most demanding environments in live entertainment. The full circle moment with the Globetrotters is just one chapter. There are plenty more being written right now.
