Saddleback’s softball team plays friendly against Peaches
Saddleback College welcomed the Bentonville Film Festival in partnership with ESPNW to a softball game against the Gauchos women’s softball team on Wednesday. The team opposing Saddleback was a mixture of ESPNW executives and actresses from the women’s baseball movie “A League of Their Own.”
The festival was co-founded in 2015 by Trevor Drinkwater and actress Gina Davis. In attendance was the festival’s Vice President of Marketing Gina Allgaier, who spoke about the festival’s mission and events.
“The mission of the Bentonville Film Festival is to support women and diversity in media,” Allgaier said.
The festival provides a platform to increase attention to the commercial value of content produced by women and minorities.
A tool to promote awareness on the subject and draw attention to the game was to insert members of the cast from the movie, “A League of Their Own.” A fitting action considering it is a softball game, and the movie starred Davis.
The first “A League of Their Own” game was held in Bentonville, Arkansas, the film festivals home. The game created a lot of buzz around the community and drew attention from potential sponsors.
“We had our first festival in May, in Bentonville, Arkansas,” said Allgaier. “We had a big ‘A League of Their Own’ softball game.”
The game was a big success and a decision to play a reunion game was made. This time the festival partnered with ESPNW and decided to play against a college to further help promote and raise awareness to their cause.
“We decided to do a reunion game and of course incorporate the Saddleback ladies team,” said Allgaier. “The ESPNW executives and the Peaches.”
The festival’s partnership with ESPNW gives light towards women in sports, when generally male sports heavily dominate media attention. The softball game is also a catalyst to draw attention to a short film competition.
For the competition participants will submit a two to five minute short film based on one of the sponsors brand briefs, while also revolving around an athletic setting related to perseverance and overcoming various types of hardship.
“We encourage all filmmakers, especially those at the college, to come out and create films and submit them,” said Allgaier.
There will be 10 winners one for each brand sponsoring the competition. The 10 victors will be brought to the festival in May 2016. Their film will be shown on ESPN socials, BFF socials and the brand’s socials as well.
Submissions for the competition will be posted on both the festival’s and ESPNW’s website. Submissions will be accepted between Nov. 2 and Jan.4.
