LG Electronics USA Helps College Basketball Fans ‘Do Game Day Right™’ in Expanded Final Four® Presence

ARLINGTON, Texas, April 4, 2014 /3BL Media/ - Official NCAA® Corporate Partner LG Electronics USA is taking North Texas by storm, helping fans “Do Game Day Right™” through a variety of unique fan experiences for NCAA® Men’s Final Four® weekend – from fun and engaging activities for the whole family at the LG Fan House to the signature LG Coaches’ Cook-Off™ competition to NCAA-related sustainability initiatives.

“Joining forces with the NCAA is a natural fit for LG, combining fans’ love of the game with their love of the ultimate game day experience,” said William Cho, president and CEO, LG Electronics USA.  “Through our NCAA partnership, LG is able to show how our innovative technologies can help fans Do Game Day Right and experience all the excitement and action of the NCAA tournament right in their own home, even if they can’t be courtside in North Texas during Final Four weekend.”

LG Fan House

Creating the ultimate Do Game Day Right fan experience, dozens of innovative LG products, including home appliances, Ultra HDTVs and Smart TVs, and smartphones and tablets, will be featured in the “LG Fan House” at Bracket Town™ presented by Capital One®. Open April 4-6 inside the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center, the LG Fan House hosts a number of family-friendly activities:

• LG’s “See Yourself in Ultra HD” demonstration uses a 4K camera to capture real-time fan footage and display it live on an LG Ultra HD TV, showing the amazing clarity of 8 million pixels – four times the resolution of  conventional 1080p HDTV.
• LG’s Speed Cycle Challenge challenges fans to toss jerseys into an LG front-load washing machine against the shot clock.
• LG’s “flick it” basketball challenge allows fans to shoot a virtual basketball from the HD screen on an LG G Flex smartphone into a basket on an LG Smart TV.
• LG’s Smart TV NCAA Basketball Trivia game plays basketball highlights on YouTube, plus fitness tracking with LG’s Lifeband Touch
• LG’s fan photos with the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet.
• LG’s giveaways and more.

LG Coaches’ Cook-Off

For 2014’s Final Four weekend, LG is enhancing its fan-favorite LG Coaches Cook-Off™ with basketball legend Clyde Drexler as one of its marquee judges. Making this year’s event a slam-dunk, LG has partnered with Project Fit America, an organization that has raised more than $13 million to support physical education programs for schools across the country.

After being selected from the Project Fit America grant application process, the “final four” North Texas elementary schools will compete for an LG physical education grant during the event. Texas’ own NCAA head men’s basketball coaches, Scott Drew of Baylor University and Billy Kennedy of Texas A&M University, representing the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC), will be at center court as sous chefs in the LG Kitchen during the culinary battle that will determine which local elementary school will receive the LG Project Fit America grant. The action is set to take place Saturday afternoon at Tip-Off Tailgate™ presented by Infiniti, outside of AT&T Stadium.

LG NCAA Sustainability Initiatives

As a 2014 ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year, LG is encouraging fans in the LG Fan House to Do Game Day Right at home by taking the “Change the World-Start with ENERGY STAR” pledge.  

What’s more, in an exciting pre-game warm-up to the Final Four, North Texas residents will have the opportunity to Do Game Day Right and bring in old TVs, computers and other electronic equipment for recycling – free of charge. LG Electronics USA has joined forces with Waste Management Recycle America to offer a special eCycling drop-off event.

Area residents are encouraged to drop off and recycle any brand of electronics products or computers between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturday at Cedar Hill High School, just 20 miles from AT&T Stadium. This free eCycling event, a key sustainability project during NCAA Final Four weekend, is part of the LG Electronics Recycling Program, which is designed to provide consumers with a convenient way to dispose of their used, unwanted, obsolete or damaged consumer electronics products.

By recycling old electronic products, useful materials such as glass, plastic and metal can be re-used in the manufacture of other products. Recycling electronics minimizes the amount of hazardous waste in the landfills and the extraction of new raw materials from the earth.  Equally significant, replacing older TVs and computer monitors with new ENERGY STAR qualified models helps consumers save energy and money while doing their part to help save the planet.

Expanded NCAA Presence

“LG will have an even greater presence this year at the Men’s Final Four in North Texas, which is an indication of its growing support of NCAA student-athletes and collegiate sports fans,” said Keith Martin, NCAA Managing Director of Championships and Alliances. “Fans will get multiple opportunities to interact with the strong LG brand and to participate in their fun and interesting activities during March Madness® and at the Final Four.” 

The 2014 Men’s Final Four marks LG’s fifth as an official NCAA Corporate Partner. LG has extended its alliance with the NCAA through August 2015. Under its new agreement, negotiated with CBS Sports and Turner Sports, LG is an official NCAA Corporate Partner and have exclusive category marketing and promotional rights related to all 89 NCAA championship events across 23 different sports, including the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship and NCAA Football Championships.

The NCAA has a multi-media agreement with both CBS and Turner Sports under which they collaborate with the NCAA to offer the NCAA’s corporate marketing program.

For more information, go to LG.com/NCAA.

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"Do Game Day Right" is a trademark of LG Electronics, Inc..

LG Coaches' Cook-Off  is a registered trademark of LG Electronics, Inc.

NCAA, Final Four and March Madness are trademarks of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

About LG Electronics USA

A proud Official Corporate Partner of the NCAA, LG Electronics USA, Inc., based in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., is the North American subsidiary of LG Electronics, Inc., a $52 billion global force and technology leader in consumer electronics, home appliances and mobile communications. In the United States, LG Electronics sells a range of stylish and innovative home entertainment products, mobile phones, home appliances, commercial displays, air conditioning systems and solar energy solutions, all under LG's "Life's Good" marketing theme. LG Electronics is a 2014 ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year. For more information, please visit www.lg.com.

About the National Association of Basketball Coaches

Located in Kansas City, Missouri, the NABC was founded in 1927 by Forrest “Phog” Allen, the legendary basketball coach at the University of Kansas.  Allen, a student of James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, organized coaches into this collective group to serve as Guardians of the Game.  The NABC currently has nearly 5,000 members consisting primarily of university and college men’s basketball coaches.  All members of the NABC are expected to uphold the core values of being a Guardian of the Game by bringing attention to the positive aspects of the sport of basketball and the role coaches play in the academic and athletic lives of today’s student-athletes.  The four core values of being a Guardian of the Game are advocacy, leadership, service and education.  Additional information about the NABC, its programs and membership, can be found at www.nabc.org.

About Project Fit America

Project Fit America (PFA) is a national non-profit public charity dedicated to getting kids fit. PFA donates fully funded cardiovascular health and lifetime fitness education programs to schools, grades K-12. Formed in 1990 as a (501) (c) (3) corporation, PFA donates 75 cents of each dollar received to schools for the sole purpose of developing exemplary model schools for cardiovascular health and fitness. The vast majority of our sponsors have been hospitals and healthcare organizations.  Since our founding sponsorship drive we have generated over $13 million.  This has resulted in the development of exemplary programs for fitness in education in over 870 schools in 300 cities and 42 states.

About the NCAA

The NCAA is a membership-led nonprofit association of colleges and universities committed to supporting academic and athletic opportunities for more than 450,000 student-athletes at more than 1,000 member colleges and universities. Each year, more than 54,000 student-athletes compete in NCAA championships in Divisions I, II and III sports. Visit www.ncaa.org and www.ncaa.com for more details about the Association, its goals and members and corporate partnerships that help support programs for student-athletes.  The NCAA is proud to have the following elite companies as official Corporate Champions—AT&T, Capital One and Coca-Cola—and the following elite companies as official Corporate Partners—Allstate, Amazon (Kindle), Buffalo Wild Wings, Buick, Burger King, Enterprise, Infiniti, LG Electronics USA, Lowe's, Nabisco, Northwestern Mutual, Reese's (Hershey's), Unilever and UPS.