Through September and early October, US-based sports broadcasting behemoth ESPN has travelled across the country to visit the home towns of the young amateur athletes whose plays have been featured on its SportsCenter’s ‘Top 10 Plays Of The Day’ feature in a lead-in to ‘SportsCenter Top 10 Day’.
The initiative celebrates the people and places behind the plays and sets out to pay tribute to those young sports stars and demonstrate that ‘greatness can happen anywhere at any time’.
10 young athletes from across the USA were celebrated by ESPN in their hometowns and surrounded by their families, friends and local communities.
ESPN teamed up with creative agency Preacher for the nationwide tour, which designated each town as ‘Home of SC Top 10’, and which saw unique, custom-built public installations paying homage to each of the #SCTop10 plays were created and revealed to each athlete as part of the programme and
The 2019 tour culminated when SportsCenter on-air anchor John Anderson travelling to Liberal, Missouri, for a live installation reveal with softball player Brooke Bearden which aired live during the noon (Eastern Standard Time) hour of SportsCenter.
Bearden, a senior at Liberal High School, suffered from a stroke but wouldn’t give up playing softball so after a long period of rehab, several months later she took to the field supported by teammates.
Through the day, ESPN aired other nine #SCTop10 short film vignettes of each athletes’ home town commemorations.
The young stars featured were: outfielder Ashlynn Jolicoeur, volleyballer Emery Dupes, footballer Henry Parrish Junior, softballer Katie Starr, basketballer Jaila Roberts, hockey player Teddy Townsend, baseball player Kyle Ginn, hoops star Fran Belibi and James Kahaleua (for an amazing one-handed catch).
As well as the experiential, ambient tour activations and installations, ESPN also ran a #SCTop10 highlight video.
The campaign was created for ESPN Senior Vice President (Marketing) Laura Gentile, VP Brand Marketing Seth Ader, Director Of Brand Marketing Peter Mulally, Brand Marketing Manager John Lobo and Coordinator Of Brand Marketing Spencer Shaev by agency Preacher.
The Preacher team included Chief Creative Officer Rob Baird, Chief Executive Officer Krystle Loyland, Chief Strategy Officer Seth Gaffney, ACD / Art Director Jimmie Blount, Copywriters Joe Hartley and Cory McCollum, Senior Designer Tim Praetzel, Brand Director Heath Tavrides, Junior Brand Manager Lakyn Allen, Strategy Director Doug Kleeman, Executive Agency Producers Sarah Kerry and Jen Ganakas and Business Affairs Abbi Press
Links:
ESPN
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https://www.facebook.com/ESPN/
Preacher
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