July 17, 2000
July 17, 2000 - New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc. has entered its fourth year as the presenting sponsor and "Official Athletic Shoe" of the Gus Macker All-World Tour. The "Gus Macker 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament" started in 1974 on a driveway basketball court with 18 friends. Today, the tournament has become a global tour, which has expanded to both indoor and outdoor venues, in over 75 cities with 200,000 participants.
As part of the New Balance/Macker Tournament sponsorship, the New Balance Challenge, a shoot-out style competition, will be the featured special event at 'select' tournaments this year. The "Challenge" will make stops at such cities as: South Bend, IN, Frederick, MD, and St. Paul, MN and conclude with the October 28-29 National Championships in Titusville, FL.
At each of these locations, there will be one winner per day at each 'select' tournament and that winner will receive a gift certificate for a free pair of New Balance basketball shoes. The rules of this competition are as follows: each competitor will have 20 seconds to complete one lay-up, one free throw and one three-point shot. The competitor that achieves this in the shortest amount of time will be the New Balance Challenge winner.
"The Gus Macker Tournament embodies the type of grassroots events that New Balance supports," said Steve David, Basketball Product Manager at New Balance. "Rather than endorse millionaire athletes, we would rather spend our marketing and promotional dollars encouraging people to participate in sports themselves."
Gus Macker Tournament registration information is available online at http://www.macker.com or by calling 616/754-0373.
