Telecast Marks U.S. Premiere of World Chase Tag
NEW YORK, N.Y. (December 16, 2019) – NBC Sports has partnered with Tupelo Raycom to air the World Chase Tag (WCT) Championship on Thursday, December 19th, at 10:30 p.m. ET, and Sunday, December 22nd, at 10:30 p.m. ET. The airings will mark the first-ever U.S. telecast of the World Chase Tag Championships, which were recently held in London.
World Chase Tag combines the dynamic athleticism of Parkour with the age-old game of Tag. The sport began in 2016 and has quickly built a cult following. WCT has quickly garnered huge online consumption, with more than 300 million organic online views. This includes 55 WCT-related videos with more than 1 million views and 52 million organic views in the last 12 months on the WCT YouTube channel, and a social media following of over 800,000.
“Partnering with NBC Sports and Tupelo gives us the perfect opportunity to introduce World Chase Tag to the U.S. audience,” said Christian Devaux, co-inventor of World Chase Tag™. “Leveraging the NBC Sports platform and Tupelo’s assets and reputation allows WCT to establish the U.S. audience and delivering best in class broadcast production of our events.”
“We are thrilled to partner with WCT,” said Cary Glotzer, CEO of Tupelo Raycom. “What most excites Tupelo is the demographic of their core audience for both linear TV broadcasts and digital platforms. The sponsorship and brand opportunities for the U.S. market are wide open for WCT and partnering with NBC Sports helps us achieve our goals.”
Gary Quinn, Vice President, Programming & Owned Properties, NBC Sports said, “We’re excited to partner with Tupelo Raycom to present the first-ever U.S. telecast of WCT and showcase the best parkour athletes in the world on NBCSN this month. WCT features the highest quality competition and we’re excited to build upon the sport’s success and help it grow with an even wider audience.”
WCT tournaments are contested by teams from around the world and feature the biggest names in Parkour and Ninja Warrior with a combined social media following exceeding 7 million from Asia, Europe and the U.S.
The game consists of two people, one chaser and one evader in an arena with various obstacles which players can use to evade being tagged by their chaser. Two teams of up to five athletes battle it out in a series of 20 second ‘Evader’ vs. ‘Tagger’ chases in a competitive 40’ x 40’ arena known as ‘The Quad.’
To quote Newsweek, “Playing Tag may be about to become a global sporting phenomenon...and it’s darn competitive.”
To see a brief sample of WCT action, click here: https://vimeo.com/373441510/91e4a74116
ABOUT WORLD CHASE TAG:
Invented by brothers Christian and Damien Devaux in 2011, World Chase Tag™ is the first and only global league for professional competitive tag. The organization is responsible for creating a standardized competitive playing arena & set of rules formats which has allowed Chase Tag™ athletes from around the world to train & compete in international tournaments.
In 2019, WCT was able to work with international partners to license the staging of official WCT events in countries & regions around the globe.
WCT owns the patent to the Chase Tag™ Timing System. Their standardized and copyrighted rules and formats are used by WCT affiliate organizations in countries around the world, including France, India, Japan, China, Korea, Australia, Canada, the USA and Columbia.
Chase Tag™ has become an exciting new entry point for kids to engage in fitness & sport by inspiring them to create their own Quad from whatever space and obstacles they can find around them. Indoors or outdoors, in a school playground or out on a farm, kids are inventively creating their own unique quads and rediscovering the simple game of tag – everyone knows the rules & anyone can play.
The WCT custom built 12m x 12m Quad is an integral part of the sport and has been co-designed and tested by some of the best Parkour athletes and Ninja Warrior competitors.
ABOUT TUPELO RAYCOM:
Tupelo Raycom is wholly owned by Gray Television (NYSE:GTN), www.gray.tv, one of the largest television broadcast companies in the country, with 150+ Television stations in 93 U.S. Markets, including the first or second highest rated station in 85 markets. Tupelo Raycom has offices throughout the United States, including Charlotte, New York City, Indianapolis and Nashville.
Tupelo Raycom produces and packages over 800 live sports and entertainment shows per year. Tupelo also creates, develops and produces original programming, including NFL, MLS, PFL (Professional Fighters League/MMA), PLL (Premier Lacrosse League), TBT (The Basketball Tournament), ACL (American Cornhole League), College Football, College Basketball, producing for NBC Sports, ESPN, CBS Sports, Turner, UniVision, The NFL Network, The ACC Network, The Yes Network and more. Tupelo also produces live music concerts for Twitter, You Tube, Facebook and other digital platforms.
ABOUT NBC SPORTS GROUP:
NBC Sports Group serves sports fans 24/7 with premier live events, insightful studio shows, and compelling original programming. The sports media company consists of NBC Sports, NBC Olympics, NBCSN, Golf, Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA, NBC Sports Regional Networks, NBC Sports Radio and NBC Sports Digital, which includes NBCSports.com, NBCOlympics.com, GolfChannel.com, the digital assets of the NBC Sports Regional Networks, Rotoworld, the NBC Sports Talk franchise, multiple apps, and two transactional sports businesses, GolfNow and SportsEngine.
NBC Sports Group possesses an unparalleled collection of television rights agreements, partnering with some of the most prestigious sports properties in the world: the International Olympic Committee and United States Olympic Committee, the NFL, NHL, NASCAR, INDYCAR, PGA TOUR, The R&A, PGA of America, Churchill Downs, Premier League, Tour de France, French Open, and many more.