SPONSORSHIP & PROMOTION
US Lacrosse named Chipotle Mexican Grill the presenting sponsor of the US Lacrosse Nationals, the national governing body’s signature youth tournament running Aug. 2-5, 2018, in Frederica, Del. “Chipotle has been one of our organization’s most supportive partners, and we are thrilled to evolve that partnership to include Chipotle as the presenting sponsor of our premier youth event,” said Brett Hurwitz, VP of marketing and communications at US Lacrosse.
DIGITAL & STREAMING
UFC FIGHT PASS will now live-stream events from the new Karate Combat promotion, beginning with next Saturday’s event out of Athens, Greece. Karate Combat features elite level karateka competing in a specially designed slope-sided fighting pit, using full contact rules.
Olympic Channel serves up Apart, a new documentary that will see South African sprinter Odessa Swarts and her son, Wayde van Niekerk share their personal journeys against the context of apartheid and history of sports in South Africa. The doc will be featured as part of the series “Foul Play”, and showcases how the power of sport played an integral role in the abolishment of apartheid in the nation.
ESPN+ will be the home for the Duke Canada Tour, with the team playing three games in thr country during a five-day trip, beginning Aug. 15. The Blue Devils will face three universities – Ryerson and University of Toronto at Paramount Fine Foods Centre (Toronto), and McGill at Place Bell (Montreal).Dan Shulman and Jay Bilas will call all the action from Canada.
ESPORTS
ELEAGUE and the US Air Force inked an expanded multi-tournament marketing partnership ahead of the ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier 2018 in a deal that will see Air Force serve as ELEAGUE’s first-ever official armed forces partner across all platforms. The deal will see Air Force activate across a number of branded integrations and placements, highlighting the strategy and skillset recruits take on as part of the Air Force with activation that includes custom video content from various bases; “Tactics” Presented by Air Force and the CS:GO Premier 2018 Championship Trophy presented by Air Force. ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier 2018 live tournament coverage will begin tomorrow at 2p.
Meanwhile, the US Air Force also locked in a deal with Cloud9’s CS:GO team, with activation kicking in at the ELEAGUE event and running through May 2019. The deal will see the Air Force logo appear on the team’s jerseys in addition to working with the team to create content featuring the squad learning about military branch, as well as sponsoring the team’s monthly web series.
The National Association of College Esports and publisher Hi-Rez Studios detailed plans to host college national championships for both Smite and Paladins beginning this fall. Play will begin in September for both titles, open to both varsity and club-level university teams. Both national championships will take place on Nov. 17 at Dreamhack Atlanta 2018 and will be broadcast to live-streaming platforms. Each national championship will have $50,000 in scholarship prizes to be awarded to championship winners.
GEICO detailed plans to launch the GEICO Gaming Ambassador program, tapping four influencers who reflect “the best values the gaming and esports communities can offer. The first two names announced for the initiative were Brian Kibler and Pokimane, who will be doing posts, commentary, and answering questions on Twitter, Instagram, and Twitch about it.
THE MAIN EVENT
The Open continues play through Sunday, where it wraps up starting at 7a on NBC.
