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Facebook Gaming is teaming up with IMG on the Stay at Home Slam, a Mario Tennis Aces tournament. The tournament will feature tennis players, other athletes as well as celebrities teaming up. The tournament is meant to offer an alternative to the pro sports that have shut down due to the pandemic.
In this tournament, participants will be playing as Mario characters and dealing with flaming rackets and trick shots that let players bounce, slide, and teleport to the ball. The Stay at Home Slam will be livestreamed exclusively on Facebook Gaming and the IMG Tennis Facebook page Sunday, May 3 at 1 p.m.
PT/4 p.m. ET. The competition is being powered by Facebook Gaming’s recently introduced tournaments feature. Competitors will receive $25,000 to be donated to the charity of their choice, and the winner will get another $1 million to be donated to a charity of their choice.
Tennis legend John McEnroe and YouTube personality iJustine (Justine Ezarik) will moderate the event. Max Eisenbud, SVP of tennis clients at IMG, “I am proud our IMG tennis clients came together so quickly to support a multitude of great causes.
It is a testament to the people we work with across all our divisions that we were able to bring this to life in such a short amount of time”. Stuart Saw, SVP of esports at IMG, commented, “Across the Endeavor network, we are pivoting in creative ways during this time of crisis.
We’re thrilled to have the internal resources to bring a bit of levity to viewers’ lives, and who better than Mario to bring people together for some friendly, competitive fun? We’re also grateful to have the support of Facebook Gaming to help us bring this event to fans around the world”.
The players who are competing in the event are teamed up as below -
- Kevin Anderson and Ryan Tannehill
- Taylor Fritz and Addison Rae
- Madison Keys and Seal
- Kei Nishikori and Steve Aoki
- Naomi Osaka and Hailey Bieber
- Maria Sharapova and Karlie Kloss
- Serena Williams and Gigi Hadid
- Venus Williams and DeAndre Hopkins