MLB.com Stand Up Stadiums: Help Strike Out Cancer!
Dedicate A Virtual Piece Of A Favorite Ballpark And Stand Up To Cancer With “Stand Up Stadiums” On MLB.comFans Can Pay Lasting Tributes To Loved Ones Touched By Cancer And Support Innovative Cancer Research
July 27, 2010 – Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C), the charitable initiative supporting groundbreaking research aimed at getting new cancer treatments to patients in an accelerated timeframe, and MLB.com, the official Web site of Major League Baseball, announced today a new online program for fans to contribute directly to cancer research while honoring loved ones touched by cancer with customized baseball virtual goods from their favorite ballparks.
“Stand Up to Cancer is thrilled to continue our long-standing partnership with Major League Baseball, through MLB.com and Stand Up Stadiums. It’s a platform that allows baseball fans everywhere to help make real progress against cancer,” says SU2C co-founder Laura Ziskin. “As a person living with cancer, I also know that this tribute space will make a personal difference in the lives of patients, survivors, and all of us in the fight.”
The program, MLB.com Stand Up Stadiums, will be supported at launch by a public service announcement created by MLB.com and SU2C that will be shown on ballpark video boards and available at MLB.com and Club Web sites. This initiative will give fans the opportunity to make a donation to SU2C online at MLB.com/standupstadiums and receive virtual seats, suites, bases and pitcher’s mounds from any of the 30 Major League Baseball ballparks, each with customized branding and personal messages to honor loved ones impacted by cancer.
After choosing their favorite team and ballpark, fans can select the virtual piece of the stadium they’d like to dedicate. The minimum donations will be tiered based on the items available, including $5 per ballpark seat, $100 per suite, $200 per base and $500 per pitcher’s mound. Individual donations at each tier may be increased as desired.
Before completing the donation, fans can enter a dedication name, write a personal commemorative message and upload a digital photograph to customize their virtual items. Fans will be able to preview their items before ordering in a special team-branded gallery page. The donor will have a unique web page link to display and share the virtual item with friends, families, co-workers and others touched by cancer via e-mail and across social networking platforms.
Major League Baseball was the founding donor to contribute to Stand Up To Cancer in 2008 when Baseball Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig pledged the industry’s resources to support this innovative cancer research model.
“Stand Up Stadiums present a compelling online vehicle to honor loved ones and rally fans in the fight against cancer,” said Dinn Mann, executive vice president, content, MLB.com. “The virtual ballparks provide a convenient way to donate, to spread the word interactively, and as an extension of Commissioner Selig’s, and the industry’s, commitment to the cause.”
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About the Stand Up To Cancer Initiative
Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C)—a program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), a 501(c)3 charitable organization—raises funds to hasten the pace of groundbreaking translational research that can get new therapies to patients quickly and save lives. In the fall of 2007, a group of women whose lives have all been affected by cancer in profound ways began working together to marshal the resources of the media and entertainment industries in the fight against this disease.
The SU2C founding members include Laura Ziskin, executive producer of the Sept. 5, 2008 broadcast and the upcoming one, who is a cancer survivor; Sherry Lansing, chairperson of the Entertainment Industry Foundation’s Board of Directors and founder of the Sherry Lansing Foundation; EIF President and CEO Lisa Paulsen; Katie Couric; EIF Senior Vice President Kathleen Lobb; Rusty Robertson and Sue Schwartz of the Robertson Schwartz Agency; nonprofit executive Ellen Ziffren; and Noreen Fraser, founder of the Noreen Fraser Foundation (NFF) and a cancer survivor. SU2C was formally launched on May 27, 2008.
Major League Baseball was the founding donor to contribute to Stand Up To Cancer. As part of this robust partnership, Stand Up To Cancer is a beneficiary of the annual MLB All Star 5K & Fun Run presented by Sports Authority and Nike, was a recipient of a $1 million MLB donation in support of the 2009 All Star Game Summer Concert with Sheryl Crow as well as the first ever live “Priceless” PSA with MasterCard at Game Three of the 2009 World Series.
Other major SU2C supporters include Sidney Kimmel, the country’s largest individual supporter of cancer research, Amgen, Wallis Annenberg & The Annenberg Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, GlaxoSmithKline, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Alliance for Global Good, Milken Family Foundation, Philips Electronics, Steve Tisch, The Island Def Jam Music Group, Comcast and many others. In addition to ABC, CBS and NBC, SU2C major media partners include AOL, Condé Nast Media Group, eBay Inc., Facebook, Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Hearst Corporation, Los Angeles Times, Meredith Corporation, The New York Times Company, Time Inc and WebMD.
About MLB.com
Established in June 2000 following a unanimous vote by the 30 Major League Baseball club owners to centralize all of Baseball’s Internet operations, MLB Advanced Media LP (MLBAM) is the interactive media and internet company of Major League Baseball. MLBAM manages the official league site, www.MLB.com, and each of the 30 individual Club sites to create the most comprehensive Major League Baseball resource on the Internet. MLB.com offers fans the most complete baseball information and interactivity on the web, including up-to-date statistics, game previews and summaries, extensive historical information, online ticket sales, baseball merchandise, authenticated memorabilia and collectibles, fantasy games, live full-game video webcasts and on-demand highlights, live and archived audio broadcasts of every game, Gameday pitch-by-pitch application, around-the-clock hosted and specialty video programming and complete blogging capabilities. MLB.com offers more live events on the Internet than any other website in the world.
Press Contacts:
Tom Chiodo, SU2C/Rubenstein Communications, (212) 843-8289
Matthew Gould, MLB.com, (212) 485-8959, cell 908-892-3143, matthew.gould@mlb.com