RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – August 28, 2013: Fantasy football just got incredibly real. For the first time in NFL history – thanks to official league sponsor Lenovo’s Fantasy Coach of the Year contest1 – a fan will get to play real-life coach, joining the 2014 Pro Bowl Alumni Captains Deion Sanders and Jerry Rice, current NFL stars and another NFL.com fantasy football champion to help select one of the two teams playing in the 2014 game. The contest will be held on NFL.com/Fantasy, with all fantasy players on the website automatically entered into the contest.
Lenovo’s Fantasy Coach of the Year will be announced following the regular season. The Fantasy Coach of the Year will then participate in the Pro Bowl player draft that will air on Wednesday, January 22 on NFL Network. The grand prize winner will be flown to Hawaii to be a part of the team to help choose a Pro Bowl squad and to then see them in action during the 2014 Pro Bowl on Sunday, January 26, watching the first quarter from the sideline. In addition, the Lenovo Fantasy Coach of the Year will be crowned at the “Third Annual NFL Honors” show on Super Bowl eve, Saturday, February 1, at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. The winner’s experience concludes with two tickets to Super Bowl XLVIII.
Lenovo’s Fantasy Coach of the Year will be determined using a unique algorithm combining win-loss percentages, league championships, a difficulty-of-league index and a “quality moves” indicator – taking into account sit/start point differential.
To help promote Fantasy Coach of the Year, Lenovo has teamed with The Onion to produce an eight-part online video series following the exploits of one hapless fantasy football coach, Brad Blevins (team name: Brad’s Awesome Team), who’s been at the bottom of his league for years. Brad’s quest: to win the National Fantasy Athletics Association. The series is titled “Tough Season” and features NFL stars Mason Crosby, Larry Fitzgerald, Matt Forte, Andrew Luck and Alfred Morris. The videos will be released throughout the season on www.Lenovo.com/NFL.
“Fantasy football is a great platform for showing off the incredibly innovative features of our products,” said Kevin Berman, Lenovo’s director of North American advertising and marketing services. “This campaign highlights the best high-tech products that any coach would ever need.” Lenovo’s Fantasy Coach of the Year videos feature three unique products: the Lenovo Yoga convertible laptop (providing four modes for ultimate flexibility), the Horizon all-in-one desktop (bringing families together with its multi-touch interface) and its ThinkPad X-1 Carbon (a sleek productivity workhorse).
Lenovo is the world’s #1 personal computer maker and is in its second year as the official laptop, desktop and workstation of the NFL. Along with its Fantasy Coach of the Year campaign, Lenovo will be the presenting sponsor of the NFL Coach of the Year award, also given out at the NFL Honors show in February.
About Lenovo
Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is a US$34 billion personal technology company – the largest PC maker in the world and an emerging PC Plus leader – serving customers in more than 160 countries.
Dedicated to exceptionally engineered PCs and mobile internet devices, Lenovo’s business is built on product innovation, a highly-efficient global supply chain and strong strategic execution. Formed by Lenovo Group’s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the Company develops, manufactures and markets reliable, high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services. Its product lines include legendary Think-branded commercial PCs and Idea-branded consumer PCs, as well as servers, workstations, and a family of mobile internet devices, including tablets and smart phones. Lenovo, a global Fortune 500 company, has major research centers in Yamato, Japan; Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China; and Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information see www.lenovo.com .
1NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. LEGAL RESIDENTS OF THE 50 UNITED STATES (D.C.), 18 AND OLDER AT TIME OF ENTRY. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED. ENTER BY 9/5/2013. For Official Rules and complete details, visit nfl.com/fantasy, Sponsor: NFL Enterprises LLC. © 2013 National Football League Players Incorporated.
