In its continued commitment to high school sports, ESPN will now be the home of the GEICO Baseball City Series.
This inaugural event features four All-Star teams comprised of high school players from Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and New York City representing their cities and the sport of high school baseball on a national stage.
The team rosters are selected by the high school governing body from each city; Chicago Public Schools Athletics (CPS), California Interscholastic Federation-Los Angeles City Section (CIF-LACS), Greater Miami Athletic Conference for the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (GMAC) and the New York City Public Schools Athletic League (PSAL).
The four participating teams will play eight total games over four days; six pool play round robin games, with the third place and championship games taking place on Thursday, July 11, at 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. ET on ESPNU. The event will be held at Les Miller Field at Curtis Granderson Stadium, University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC).
“Adding the GEICO Baseball City Series is a natural extension in our efforts to showcase the top high school athletes in the country,” said Dan Margulis, senior director of programming and acquisitions. “This inaugural event will add to our existing baseball portfolio, which includes more than 800 regular season college baseball games and an extensive rights agreement with MLB.”
“We are excited to collaborate with ESPN to bring high school baseball to the national stage and to host this unique event in the great baseball city of Chicago“, said Rashid Ghazi, partner at Paragon Marketing Group, which owns and operates the GEICO Baseball City Series. “This is a special opportunity for these student-athletes to showcase their talent on a national stage, proudly represent their hometowns and receive an enriching experience while competing in the sport they love.”
The GEICO Baseball City Series will be hosted at Curtis Granderson Stadium – a state-of-the-art sports complex developed in part by MLB All-Star outfielder and 2016 recipient of the Roberto Clemente Humanitarian Award, Curtis Granderson. Granderson personally donated $5 million dollars to help fund the baseball stadium at UIC, the largest one-time gift to an alma mater by a professional athlete in history. Debuting in 2014, Curtis Granderson Stadium is now the home of the Chicago Baseball Educational Academy, hosting over 10,000 Chicago area youth annually at the indoor and outdoor facility.
For further event information, visit geicocityseries.com