Marking 25 years since The Simpsons’ “Homer at the Bat” episode originally aired, featuring the likes of Wade Boggs, Ken Griffey, Jr. and Ozzie Smith; as well as Roger Clemens, Steve Sax, Jose Canseco, Don Mattingly, Darryl Strawberry and Mike Scioscia, the series is partnering with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum to celebrate the anniversary of the ep on May 27 from Cooperstown with activities that include the “induction” of Homer Simpson into the Hall of Fame, and the first 4,500 fans in attendance at the Classic that afternoon will receive a rally towel featuring original artwork of Homer Simpson wearing a Hall of Fame baseball uniform, as well as a roundtable, screening and exhibit.
For the third consecutive year, windshield headers on all 40 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series cars will be replaced with the names of fallen military service members during Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600. This year’s “600 Miles of Remembrance” tribute honoring those who bravely served our country, launches a six-week platform encapsulating the industry’s collective expression of respect and gratitude – NASCAR Salutes Refreshed by Coca-Cola. Several families of those recognized on the race cars will attend the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The track will host more than 5,000 active military members at Sunday’s race in honor of Memorial Day.
New Era Cap announced three new brand ambassadors for the 2017-18 season: Draymond Green (Golden State Warriors), John Wall (Washington Wizards) and D’Angelo Russell (Los Angeles Lakers). They join Indiana Pacers All-Star Paul George. “We are thrilled to announce the first team of ambassadors under our new licensing partnership with the NBA,” said Joshua Krebs, Sr. Category Manager Basketball, New Era Cap. “Aside from being some of the best players on the hardwood, each ambassador has their own unique sense of style off the court encompassing the lifestyle aspect which New Era is all about.”
Univision Deportes announced its partnership with social impact agency, Force Multiply to build on UCI’s corporate social responsibility platform, “Univision Contigo.” Through the collaboration, Univision Deportes and Force Multiply will assemble key participants and investors, sports icons and influencers, non-profits and UCI’s talent to align efforts in the launch of two initiatives: “Por el Amor al Deporte,” a program that aims to recognize and celebrate those individuals that leverage sports as a vehicle for social change; and a program aimed at fast-tracking and uniting with likeminded organizations to create real social change through the power of sport.
NESN announced the launch of NESNgo to provide fans live in-market streaming of all NESN-televised regular season Boston Red Sox games and other NESN programming. NESN live streaming is available throughout much of the network’s home territory and is available without any additional costs to “authenticated subscribers” who already have NESN in their channel lineup from participating television providers.
WWE detailed plans for the first-ever Mae Young Classic, slated to take place on July 13-14 from Full Sail Live in Orlando. The tournament, named after WWE Hall of Famer, will feature 32 of the top female competitors from around the world participating in a single-elimination tournament, and will be streamed later this summer exclusively on WWE Network.
Insight TV commissioned a new football reality show titled Lost in Europe and starring global social influencers the F2 Freestylers, who boast over five and a half million YouTube subscribers. The show will launch in 4K UHD on the channel in October 2017, is being produced by Renowned Films.
Riot Games laid out its gameplan for Rift Rivals, a League of Legends event slated to take place around the world from July 3-9 with five tournaments featuring 13 regions in play. Competition will pit North America/Europe on July 6-8, and Latin America North/Brazil/Latin America South from July 5-8. In other rivalry games, the Commonwealth of Independent States faces Turkey from July 6-9. Southeast Asia/Oceania/Japan battle from July 3-6 and Korea/LMS/China on July 6-9.
Meanwhile, IEM announced via Reddit that that circuit would no longer feature competition for Riot Games’ League of Legends, at least for the current season. IEM’s Michael Blicharz noted that, “Our 2017 events won’t happen to be in a period where pro LCS teams are free to compete. In discussions with Riot it was also determined that LCS wouldn’t pause for Katowice. This means that for the first time since 2011 LoL won’t be there. I am sad I won’t see some of you there next year.”
Catalyst Sports & Media is opening a new facility, announcing the launch of Sandbox Esports, described as a first of its kind esports training facility and program where esports franchises, Counter Logic Gaming and FlyQuest recently trained. The training program and facility is located within Sports Academy’s 96,000 square facility in Thousand Oaks, CA and blends aspects of physical training exercises (weights, cardio, core exercises, etc.), cognitive development (hand-eye coordination, reaction time, etc.) and an in-game esports training component with an initial focus on League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Overwatch and NBA 2K.
Learfield unveiled a slate of company promotions in its multi-media rights business. Among the names climbing the ladder are: Pat Fagan to SVP in Learfield’s Atlanta office; Gerry Dickey as VP; Jeff Bolitho as VP; and Tim Utrup as VP. Gil Beverly, a 12-year senior executive with ESPN, joined Learfield in April as a VP in Dallas. Lastly, vice president Tom Wistrcill moves to a leadership position in the core business from the company’s University Partnership Group.
US Club Soccer and its management company, C2SA elevated two of its long-time executives, announcing that Christian Lavers has accepted a new opportunity to serve as Executive Vice President of C2SA while Leo Garcia will be promoted to Vice President of Competitions of US Club Soccer.
Manchester United/Ajax in The Europa League Final at 2p on FS1.
