ESPN will roll out itsMake-A-Wish series, “My Wish,” for a second consecutive year later this month,with segments featuring NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson, David Ortiz of the BostonRed Sox, Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat and Drew Brees of the New OrleansSaints.
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Jimmie Johnson made 16-year-old Jennifer
Walters’ dream come true as part of ESPN’s
Make-A-Wish series, “My Wish.” |
The spots are scheduled torun during “SportsCenter” June 24-29 and will be hosted again by ChrisConnelly. The segments will be replayed on various shows during the rest of theyear.
“The decision to renew thisseries was a no-brainer for us,” said Stephanie Druley, ESPN’s seniorcoordinating producer of studio production, who will oversee the series.“There’s nothing else we do that gets the sort of viewer feedback that we’veseen with this series.”
As an example, Druleypointed to an episode last year that involved Andrew Pointer, a fifth gradersuffering from renal failure, who wanted to meet the Colorado Rockies’ ToddHelton.
“Viewers wound up sendingTodd Helton baseball cards to us to give to the boy,” Druley said.
Similarly, the Make-A-WishFoundation reported a 43 percent increase in visitors to its Web site last July(to 162,000 hits from 113,000), and said online donations increasedsignificantly during the two-week period when last year’s spots ran.
“We were pleased that wewere able to get in front of a young male demographic that we’re notparticularly strong with,” said David Williams, the foundation’s president andCEO.
Last year, ESPN and theMake-A-Wish Foundation created 10 spots that ran for two weeks in July. Thisyear, they are paring it down to five, in order to concentrate more on each ofthe stories.
“We were really fortunatethat all 10 of the stories from last year were as high quality as they were,”Druley said.
The stories are planned forthe summer months, when “SportsCenter” does not have a lot of sports to cover.Each segment lasts between seven and eight minutes.
The critically acclaimedseries connects people with life-threatening illnesses with athletes theyadmire. Each story follows a similar pattern, showing the reason the childrenwant their wishes, interviews with the children and their families and abehind-the-scenes look at their wishes being fulfilled. To ensure that thechildren are surprised, the network isn’t identifying two of the athletes whowill take part, since those spots have yet to be filmed.
One of this year’s storiesinvolves Jennifer Walters, a 16-year-old girl from Colesburg, Iowa. She suffersfrom lymphoma and wanted to meet Jimmie Johnson, who, along with his wife, isa member of the Make-A-WishFoundation’s National Advisory Council.
Walters met Johnson in May atthe Darlington Raceway, where she was in the pits and attended drivers’meetings with him. Her biggest thrill was having Johnson drive her around thetrack at high speeds in his car.
Though ESPN has tried butfailed before to sell a sponsorship, it is not trying this year. Instead, theseries will be presented in cooperation with the Make-A-Wish Foundation and theWalt Disney Co.
