Had a great time at the opening ceremonies of the ESPN RISE Games on Saturday. The crowd and the student athletes were really pumped up for the official launch of the two week event. I think this rendition of Thriller, led by DJ Steve Dunlap, was a great way to get everyone into the spirit.
More on the opening ceremonies later, but I wanted to get out the schedule of events as they’ll be shown on ESPN3.com and ESPNU.
I attended last year’s inaugural ESPN RISE Games at Disney’s Wide World of Sports. It was a rain drenched opening ceremony but all the student athletes were really into it and a lot of fun was had by all. Since then the park has finished its rebranding and is now ESPN Wide World of Sports with a new look, more for athletes to do, and a great tie-in to the ESPN brand and technology.
This year over 13,000 Student Athletes are expected to attend ESPN RISE and events will even air on ESPNU and ESPN3.com. Even if your student’s team isn’t competing, ESPN RISE games is a great place to see some elite level competition across a range of sports. I’m looking forward to seeing as much of it as I can.
Note, the opening ceremony is July 17th, but some competition begins on July 14th.
For more details see the full press release below the jump: