Everfi Becomes MLB's Official Education Partner, Rolls Out "Summer Slugger" Program

MLB has collaborated with education technology company Everfi to begin a widespread rollout of Summer Slugger, a free baseball-themed education course aimed at preventing students from losing math and literacy skills during the summer break from school. Summer Slugger will be initially targeted to fourth and fifth grade students with interactive, baseball-themed games, and 14 clubs have joined in the initial promotion of the program with localized, team-branded efforts. Some of those initiatives, such as the Rangers’ Summer Slugger program in North Texas, have already started, and Everfi now will become an official education partner of the league. Everfi has also worked with the NFL and NHL on sports-themed education programs, but Summer Slugger is particularly targeted toward curbing summer learning loss. “This is a really unique program that is designed to be used outside of the classroom, and it obviously lines up with the heart of our schedule,” said MLB Exec VP/League Economics & Strategy Chris Marinak. “We think this will grow quickly and that we’ll have all 30 clubs involved next year.” MLB Chief Baseball Officer Joe Torre, COO Tony Petitti and Everfi co-Founder & CEO Tom Davidson will participate this afternoon in a launch event for the Summer Slugger initiative at the Dream Charter School in N.Y. The new MLB effort follows Everfi’s recent closing of a $190 million round of funding.