If you’re looking to sprinkle stardust on a sporting event, who better to call than “The Boss” and Magnum, PI?
And if Bruce Springsteen and Tom Selleck are unavailable, then why not turn to their daughters?
Jessica Springsteen and Hannah Selleck are two of the riders hoping equestrian can compete with North America’s other sporting thoroughbreds.
Challenged with matching baseball, basketball, football and hockey, a new elite showjumping series will launch in August.
“What this league can do for me, and other young, up-and-coming riders, is grow public knowledge of the sport, get it exposed to the mainstream, and grow a viewer base,” Selleck told CNN.
Replacing two old showjumping leagues with one new league spanning the whole of North America, the competition has acquired a wealthy title sponsor in watchmaker Longines as equestrian bosses bid to give the sport a foothold in the public’s imagination.
“We will be competitive in the world market of sport,” says John Madden – not the NFL coach and broadcaster, but a leading official with equestrian sport’s world governing body, the FEI.
“I had been tasked with looking at how we could turn this league into something commercially viable for a sponsor, and concise and interesting enough for fans and media.
“How are we going to be able to compete with the other front-page sports? Hopefully, we’ll become one.”
The new league will have 14 stages, F1-style, across the United States, Mexico and Canada. That’s down from 22 events in two leagues this past season.
Madden believes the revised format offers “a better product,” with a narrative fans can follow.
“Every time we talked to any kind of sports marketing people or broadcasters, they said you can have your one-off classics – your majors – but what we need is a plan to have the fan understand who’s coming up and who’s going down,” he said.
“We believe this can be an excellent broadcast sport. But in order to have the sport broadcast on high-level TV with excellent production and distribution, we have to have a league that has a calendar and goes to beautiful venues and things like that.”
But the sport’s desire to find new audiences is exemplified by the prominence of Springsteen and Selleck at the league’s unveiling, who flanked Madden’s wife, 51-year-old double Olympic champion Beezie Madden, one of the most successful showjumpers in U.S. history.
Springsteen, the 23-year-old daughter of rock legend Bruce, is a world top-50 showjumper hoping to reach next year’s Rio Olympics with Team USA. Hannah, 26, is the daughter of former Friends actor Tom.
“Hopefully, by this fall, Barla and I will be ready,” said Selleck, in reference to the league’s August 2015 start date.
“Right now, we’re dealing with equestrian-only sponsors – we don’t have big sponsors like Nike that sponsor athletes across the board.
“I’m lucky enough to have my parents as amazing sponsors but even that, it’s not enough. Getting that sporting brand across, if it’s done well, will be really helpful for the next generation.”
One of the problems equestrian sport has long fought is a profusion of similarly named events across its disciplines.
Only dedicated fanatics can truly explain the difference between the dozens of World Cup, Nations Cup, three-star, four-star, and five-star events on offer, many of them further divided into nine separate regions.
For outsiders, working out precisely who you’re watching and how good they are can be tough.
Madden says the North American League’s $2.4 million in prize money per year, put up by sponsors Longines, will help to establish it as home to some of the world’s best riders – fighting to qualify for the global World Cup Final.
“We’re trying to sink our teeth into that problem and I think this is a huge step,” he told CNN.
“In five years’ time, I see a large number of these events televised into not only American households but worldwide.
“I see showjumping being competed in front of sold-out stands on broadcast network television.”
