Your most valuable team.
Menuclose
The Laver Cup – an annual professional team tennis event founded by 20-time Grand Slam winner Roger Federer that pits Team Europe against Team World – was coming to Chicago in September 2018. The event, which had made a successful debut in Prague in 2017, would be held outside of Europe for the first time ever, in a non-traditional tennis market that had not hosted a professional event of any significance in nearly three decades.
MVT was tasked with developing and executing a unique, high-profile launch event in the Windy City that leveraged the global superstardom of Federer along with tennis legends Rod Laver and John McEnroe, and Team World member Nick Kyrgios to deliver significant and impactful earned media on a local and national level; generate excitement for the upcoming event; and drive ticket sales.
Enter MVT. With deep knowledge of the tennis media landscape, existing relationships with key industry players, and a home base in Chicago, our team was uniquely positioned to rise to the challenge. Leveraging operational resources and key partners, the team constructed a branded tennis court at one of Chicago’s most iconic landmarks. More than 20 members of the media, 50+ invited guests and thousands of fans attended the public-facing launch event at The Bean.
The festivities were followed by a high-profile press conference at the historic Chicago Athletic Association Hotel, where members of the media assembled for a presentation and Q&A with Laver Cup principles and participants.
Throughout the day, MVT successfully managed executions across the Laver Cup social and digital channels, as well as content capture through photography and video partners to create promotional assets that could be leveraged ahead of the event in September.
The Laver Cup launch event and subsequent press conference generated more than 80 stories in print and online media – including a feature in the New York Times, an editorial in the Chicago Tribune and an Associated Press wire story that was re-purposed 71 times across the U.S. and Canada. Total print and online circulation/views were more than 1.69 million. Additionally, more than 40 television and radio segments totalled nearly 1 million viewers. Total live views total across Laver Cup social platforms topped more than 150,000.
At the end of the day, the launch event set the Laver Cup up for unprecedented success in Chicago, and proved that the Windy City can truly be a tennis town.
