ESPN continues to roll out more creative commercials as part of the ‘This is SportsCenter’ campaign, with the latest set to debut on-air tomorrow, February 4th.
What’s Happening:
- Sat., Feb. 4, United States Olympic Track & Field gold medalist Sydney McLaughlin will have her own This is SportsCenter moment. She’ll be alongside veteran SportsCenter anchor Hannah Storm with a cameo from Providence mascot Friar Dom.
- “Seconds,” in partnership with Arts & Letters Co., will debut during the 259th Duke – North Carolina men’s basketball game, which airs Sat., Feb. 4 at 6:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.
- Similar to the other recent creative, the commercials were filmed inside the ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn. Storm asks McLaughlin to catch up, but her schedule is pretty packed. McLaughlin replies with, “Yeah, I’ve got 51.46 right after lunch, or I’ve got 51.41 later this afternoon. Oh, wait, I have 50.68 right now!”
- Storm quickly shuts down the idea with a simple, “It wasn’t that important anyway.”
- Each number is of significance to McLaughlin. The 51.46 was when she broke her own 400m hurdles world record for Olympic gold in Tokyo. Her 51.41 was her 400m hurdles time at the 2022 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships (then a world record), and 50.68 was her 2022 World Athletics Championships time – again shattering her world record mark a month later.
- This is the fourth This is SportsCenter commercial since the return of the campaign in late 2022. Other prominent athletes featured include United States Women’s National Team soccer stars Megan Rapinoe, Becky Sauerbrunn, and Sophia Smith with SportsCenter anchors Elle Duncan, Kevin Neghandi, and Jay Harris having roles.
- Famous mascots to appear on television screens nationally include University of Connecticut mascot Jonathan the Husky and Syracuse University mascot Otto the Orange, and with a featured role from Delta State University’s Fighting Okra.
- Other spots of the "This is SportsCenter” campaign include: “Orange Slices,” “Performance Evaluation,” and “Stoppage Time.”
- More commercials are set to air later in 2023.
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