WHO: Spurs fan Briana Saldaña, pop legend Kelly Clarkson, and an AT&T Center camera operator with an eye for talent.
WHAT: A lip-synched performance of “Since U Been Gone” that raises the bar for future fans who find themselves on the Jumbotron.
WHY IT’S SO GREAT: The Spurs haven’t had much to celebrate this season. The team is well below .500, in tenth place in its conference, and playing out the string. But that doesn’t mean that fans can’t find something to get enthusiastic about. On Sunday night, that wasn’t the basketball action. Rather, it was a sing-along to Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” in which Spurs fan and San Antonio resident Briana Saldaña took full and complete ownership of the Jumbotron for at least 37 seconds.
In the viral clip, shared by the Dan Le Batard Show podcast, Saldaña initially seems unaware that the camera is on her. Nonetheless, she sings along with the intensity of a born performer, using the straw from her drink as a proxy microphone. Within seconds, Saldaña seems to recognize that she’s caught the eye of the camera operator, and she intends to keep it. Fixing her gaze on the camera, she points a finger directly at the viewer as Clarkson’s voice builds toward the chorus. Presumably aware that the Spurs haven’t had an iconic representative since Kawhi forced his way out and Manu and Parker retired, she seems determined to take on the role herself. (Texas Monthly reached out to Saldaña and to the Spurs, but we didn’t hear back.)
Meeting the moment, she pumps her fist, then rises from her seat. Behind her, some rando goober in a Portland Trailblazers ball cap points to his Gonzaga Bulldogs T-shirt; he’s perhaps the only person in the venue unaware that Saldaña has claimed the song. She turns to her partner and places a hand on his shoulder as he puts his own over his heart, as though he’s pledging allegiance to her, to Clarkson, to the Spurs, to all three. Though “Since U Been Gone” is a breakup anthem, Saldaña’s date seems unperturbed by her enthusiasm for the material; secure in their love, he’s content to cheer her on. She swings a leg onto her now vacant seat, and he raises his hands in the air, applauding, a huge smile on his face as the chorus starts. Saldaña breaks into a full-on, cathartic rock-out session, allowing herself for the first time in the fifteen seconds since she took ownership of the Jumbotron to glance at her own performance. Her brief flash of self-recognition doesn’t transform the nature of her performance, however—defying the “observer effect” of quantum physics, Saldaña seems to confirm only that she is, indeed, killing it.
She generously grants her attention to the fans around her (even the guy in the Gonzaga shirt) for a moment before returning to the camera, pointing her finger straight in front of her as though she, not Clarkson—and certainly not Dejounte Murray or Keldon Johnson—is the rightful object of everyone’s attention. Saldaña offers a brief, triumphant shimmy as the chorus fades. It’s been 34 seconds since she recognized that the camera had found her.
The Spurs would outscore the Blazers 65–36 in the second half, winning the game 113–92. Saldaña, now the viral face of a city eager to let loose in the midst of its first fully-in-person Fiesta celebration since 2019, went unmentioned by Coach Pop in the postgame, but we suspect he knows what she did. Here’s hoping she ends up on Carpool Karaoke or something.
