Burr Ridge, Ill. — April 16, 2012: Alli Sports, a division of the NBC Sports Group, today announced a four-year renewal of their partnership with Mountain Dew, along with the 2012 schedule for the new Dew Tour. Alli Sports, together with Mountain Dew, who has been the tour title partner since its inception, is reshaping the Dew Tour to showcase action sports in three large-scale, premium and ‘grand-slam’ style events.

 

Leveraging the resources of the NBC Sports Group, which acquired 100% of Alli Sports last year, the new Beach, City, Mountain tour model will better serve the needs of the athletes and action sports community. The three premium events will boast expanded television programming and digital strategy across NBC, NBC Sports Network, nbcsports.com and allisports.com, as well as hyper-local promotional and programming opportunities through the NBC Sports Group’s owned stations and regional sports networks.  At the event level, each stop will include expanded and new sports and disciplines, and an enhanced on-site experience featuring more live music and a new “Dew Tour Experience,” bringing  all aspects of action sports culture to life throughout the five-day festivals.

 

“The action sports landscape has grown and changed dramatically since we launched the Dew Tour in 2005. The multi-stop series format was what the industry wanted and needed then.  The Dew Tour changed the industry forever, taking the sports to a whole new level.  The new Dew Tour, which will include three major events across Beach, City and Mountain venues, represents what the athletes and industry want and need today,” said Wade Martin President & CEO Alli Sports. “We believe our partnership with Mountain Dew represents one of the most unique, integrated relationships between brand and property in all of sports.  This partnership extension and the new approach we created for the Dew Tour together with Mountain Dew, the athletes and the industry, truly underscores that.”

 

“Dew Tour continues to work hand-in-hand with the athletes. They asked for a platform that would elevate their sports and we worked with Alli to deliver that,” said Brett O’Brien, Vice President of Marketing, Mountain Dew. “With the new Dew Tour, we are working to ensure that we evolve along with the action sports community.  With input from the athletes, we’re developing a platform that answers their call for fewer, bigger, better events.”

 

Spanning the country August through December, the 2012 Dew Tour schedule will include returns to Ocean City, Md. and Breckenridge Ski Resort, with a debut event in San Francisco on the West coast. The Dew Tour will integrate the character of each stop into the overall feel of the event, capitalizing on impactful Beach, City and Mountain backdrops as each of the three events will draw inspiration from the host city to create its own identity.

 

 

The 2012 Dew Tour will include over 30 hours of live television coverage on NBC and NBC Sports Network.  In addition, the Dew Tour will present an expanded digital offering including live competitions and behind-the-scenes exclusive content across multiple platforms.  In addition, all broadcast hours will be distributed live internationally across Alli’s extensive network of distribution partners.

“The NBC Sports Group is excited about the new model of the Dew Tour,” said Rob Simmelkjaer SVP NBC Sports Ventures and International. “This new approach is consistent with our ‘big event strategy’ and will allow us to leverage the powerful resources we have across broadcast, cable and digital.  From all angles – programming, promotion, production and scheduling – the new Dew Tour fits incredibly well into the NBC Sports Group.”

 

Utilizing the athletes as the drivers of the Tour, each of the three stops will present a different mix of sports and disciplines. Over the past six months, Alli Sports and Mountain Dew – reinforcing a long-standing commitment to the action sports community – have held panels with athletes, agents and industry veterans to determine the best way to progress the sports and elevate sports’ stars and the competitions. Open communication led to the development of the new model of the Dew Tour, as participants expressed their ideal courses, disciplines, formats and overall event authenticity.

“I think it’s cool that Alli and Mountain Dew held panels this year for all of the competitors so we can share our input on the event. Bringing the events to venues that have such a strong history in skate will step up the level of competition, and I’m looking forward to seeing it all come together,” said Mountain Dew athlete Paul Rodriguez.

                                
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Alli Sports, is an action sports lifestyle brand whose mission is to connect fans with athletes and brands through best in class events, media, and authentic branded products.  Alli Sports includes: the Dew Tour, Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship and the Red Bull Signature Series; Alli Media, which creates, produces, and distributes original content; Alli RideShop, an online retailer carrying top skate and BMX consumer products; and Alli MotoShop an online retailer carrying top moto consumer products.  Alli Sports is owned by NBC Sports.  More information can be found at allisports.com.

 

NBC Sports Group

When the Comcast-NBCUniversal transaction was completed in January of 2011, the broad reach and storied history of NBC Sports united with Comcast’s 24/7 ability to super-serve fans to create the NBC Sports Group. The new sports media company consists of an array of broadcast television, cable television and digital sports assets, including NBC Sports & Olympics, Golf Channel, Versus, 11 SportNets (regional sports networks) and their respective websites. Together, the new combined assets of the NBC Sports Group possess an unparalleled collection of television rights agreements, partnering with some of the most prestigious sports properties in the world: the Olympics, NFL, NHL, PGA TOUR, PGA of America, USGA, IndyCar, French Open, Tour de France and The Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes.

 

About Mountain Dew

With its one-of-a-kind citrus taste, Mountain Dew exhilarates and quenches with every sip. In addition to original Mountain Dew® and Diet Mountain Dew®, the permanent DEW product line includes Mountain Dew Code Red®, Mountain Dew LiveWire®, Mountain Dew Throwback®, Mountain Dew Voltage® and Mountain Dew White Out®. For more information, check out www.mountaindew.com or www.facebook.com/mountaindew or on twitter @mtn_dew.