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Meet the man who chases NWSL goal celebrations for a living
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- Meet the man who chases NWSL goal celebrations for a living
Meet the man who chases NWSL goal celebrations for a living
Caiya Hanks had been on the field for barely eight minutes against the Orlando Pride when she received a pass from M.A. Vignola.
With the score tied 1-1 in the sixth minute of stoppage time, the Portland Thorns forward dribbled toward the center of the attacking third, took three touches to set herself up and curled a right-footed shot past the dive of goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse.
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The stadium erupted.
The 21-year-old forward, who had just returned from an ACL injury, had scored the winner in front of her home crowd at Providence Park. Her face lit up, and teammates rushed to surround her in one giant cuddle puddle that almost swallowed her. She then ran to the sideline to meet the arms of her teammate, Pietra Tordin.
Amid the chaos, another figure ran toward Hanks.
He wasn't a teammate, a coach or an overly enthusiastic supporter who had somehow breached stadium security and jumped onto the pitch. He was a man carrying a small camera attached to a live transmitter on his back, sprinting across the pitch to get as close as possible to Hanks and her goal celebration.
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His name is Tomas Hoppough, and this is his job.
Of all the goal celebrations he captured this season, Hanks' was his favorite. Rather than an elaborate dance or rehearsed routine, he loved it because of what the goal meant to her and the fans.
Hoppough, 37, operates the NWSL celebration camera for broadcaster ION, a role that requires him to anticipate goals, sprint onto the field and capture the unfiltered emotion traditional television coverage struggles to convey.
His job sounds simple. When a player scores, Hoppough runs onto the pitch, gets as close as possible, and captures the unfiltered joy of a goal. Sometimes he gets a choreographed dance, sometimes a pile of screaming teammates and, occasionally, a player looking straight into his lens in disbelief at what she has just accomplished. But the job is much more than pointing a camera at a celebrating soccer player.
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For starters, Hoppough has to be fast. Really fast.
On an ordinary day, he averages roughly 22,000 steps. On an NWSL matchday, that number can climb to 30,000.
"I treat myself like a pro athlete," Hoppough told The Athletic . "I eat healthy. I train multiple times a day. I'm around pro athletes so much, I gotta keep up. I gotta fit the part."
Hoppough's unlikely role began in 2025, when the NWSL began experimenting with a new way of bringing television audiences closer to players.
"As a broadcast team, we are always looking for a way to connect fans and potential fans with the emotion and excitement around the game," Meg Buchan, the NWSL's senior director of broadcast and production, told The Athletic . Unlike other sports or leagues, NWSL did not have a "celly cam" until Buchan's initiative.
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To get the camera on the pitch, Buchan worked with the league's operations and sporting departments to determine whether a camera operator could safely enter the field immediately after a goal. They tested the concept during last year's playoff matches and other marquee games before offering it to its broadcast partners. ION, which airs NWSL matches on Saturday nights, embraced the idea and turned the camera into a regular feature of one match each Saturday, with Hoppough becoming its recognizable face.
But even Buchan could not have anticipated how much personality Hoppough would bring to the job. "He wasn't just haphazardly trying to catch a celebration," she explained. "He was really strategic about where he placed himself and making sure that he got the best shots."
As the season progressed, players began recognizing Hoppough, anticipating his arrival and even interacting directly with his camera. "ION and Tomas have really brought this idea to life," Buchan said.
One of Hoppough's earliest experiments involved Lo'eau LaBonta, the Kansas City Current midfielder known for her elaborate goal celebrations. After converting a penalty, LaBonta ran toward Hoppough's camera, screaming and throwing her hands into the air. Hoppough instinctively shook the camera to match her energy.
"I think that set it off," he said. "The NWSL was like, 'Wow, this is really cool. Let's go ahead and do it. Let's keep doing it.'"
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This season the celly cam experience became a regular feature of ION's Saturday broadcasts, with Hoppough emerging as the familiar face behind the camera. The players, initially surprised to see a cameraman charging toward them, have slowly become increasingly comfortable with his presence.
"Compared to last year, they have definitely played up more to it, and they have definitely done more with it," he said.
Having played soccer throughout his life, including at the college level, he can recognize when an attacking move is developing into a genuine scoring opportunity. While spectators watch the ball, Hoppough is also calculating the distance he might need to cover if it ends up in the net.
He stretches throughout the game to stay loose, keeps an eye on the assistant referee's flag and checks whether any player has been injured. He cannot enter the field if the goal is disallowed, and he must be careful not to intrude when someone needs medical attention. Once those boxes are checked, however, there is no time to waste.
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"It's just green light, full steam ahead, get to that, and kind of half circle around them," he said.
Another complication: NWSL players don't always make life easy for their celebration cameraman. In some men's leagues, particularly the Premier League, goalscorers frequently run toward the corner flag, creating a relatively predictable destination for photographers and television cameras. NWSL players often celebrate wherever they happen to be, forcing him to cover considerably more ground than anticipated.
"But what I love about the NWSL and these players is they celebrate as a team every time they score a goal," he said.
Last season, some celebrations were worth the extra mileage.
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After Kansas City midfielder Debinha's hat trick against Bay FC in October, LaBonta tapped her on the head and Debinha recreated the movement of her miniature likeness for the camera. It was exactly the kind of spontaneous, playful moment the celebration cam was designed to capture.
Another favorite came in Denver in May, where Janine Sonis' penalty goal prompted a swarm of teammates to jump on top of her before she turned toward Hoppough's camera and made a hand gesture.
For Hoppough, those moments remind him why he made an unexpected career switch. Before switching to Scripps Sports and ION, he spent nearly a decade in news, working as a national correspondent and multimedia journalist for Scripps News. From 2015 to 2024, he produced documentaries and reported stories, often shooting, writing and editing his own work.
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He describes himself as a "Swiss Army knife in media," a journalist accustomed to juggling multiple responsibilities.
The transition into sports wasn't part of some grand career plan. He simply found himself moving from the news division into sports production, where his experience as a journalist and lifelong soccer player proved particularly useful.
Today, his responsibilities extend well beyond the celebration. He produces features on athletes, helps with ION's live Saturday broadcasts, films stadium scenes and works alongside the sideline reporter before and after matches.
The celebration camera, he says, is actually one of the smallest parts of his job. It's also his favorite.
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"It's a huge adrenaline rush, and it's so much fun to get them, and it's so much fun to bolster up the league, you know, in women's sports," he said.
One of the most important parts of his job is introducing himself to security personnel, referees and photographers before kickoff. The last thing he wants is to be mistaken for an unauthorized spectator running onto the pitch.
"I make sure to let security know I'm 'that dude,' so they don't tackle me," he said, chuckling. He also warns still photographers that he may be about to sprint into their carefully composed shots, giving them a chance to get their pictures before he arrives. Not everyone gets a warning before Hoppough enters the frame, but by now, most NWSL players know exactly who he is.
Although ION will not broadcast any of this weekend's quarterfinals, the celebration camera will appear during select playoff matches, operated by other trained camera professionals.
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Hoppough, meanwhile, is expected to return to ION's Saturday night coverage in 2027. "Tomas is a very important part of that coverage," Buchan said. "We hope Tomas keeps working out so he can keep that speed and agility up."
For years, men's soccer has produced celebrations that became inseparable from the players who invented them, from Cristiano Ronaldo's "Siuuu" leap at the corner flag to the elaborate routines performed by stars worldwide. Women's soccer has its own iconic moments, including Alex Morgan's tea-sipping celebration at the 2019 World Cup .
Hoppough hopes the NWSL will produce many more.
"These women are killing it. They work hard," he said. "When they score, sometimes they don't celebrate that much. They just give each other a hug, and it's business as usual. Like, all right, let's go get another one."
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But scoring a goal, he argues, is extraordinarily difficult and it should be celebrated accordingly.
"I love seeing players celebrate in a euphoric way because scoring is so hard in any league. When you do it, be proud, celebrate with your teammates and have fun," he said. "Soccer is the most creative game out there, and I love seeing players bring that same creativity to their celebrations. These players work so hard day in and day out, and they're so focused. It's fun to see them let loose and do something silly and memorable when they score."
This article originally appeared in The Athletic .
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