For years now, teams from various sports have been holding Star Wars nights at stadiums and arenas. It’s a pop culture icon that still has a hold on a couple generations as shared moments of loving a movie or set of movies. Even after the prequels, the original Star Wars films thrive.
Using George Lucas’ saga on sports broadcasts is nothing particularly new, either. Back when 20th Century Fox was re-releasing the original films, the NHL On Fox opened a Blackhawks-Penguins game with a very… weirdly intense, Star Wars-themed intro.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeLRRc6714c
Disney now owns the rights to the franchise, and is producing three sequels to the original in the coming years. St. Louis’ Busch Stadium was holding a Star Wars night for the Cardinals’ Wednesday home game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. ESPN happened to be televising it. I think you know how this ended.
That there is Obi-wan Rick Sutcliffe. The photo at the top is Doug Glanville as a storm trooper. Meanwhile, the rest of ESPN’s crew wasn’t afraid to get in on the action, looking at their control room.
On a night when ESPN had a World Cup match, the theme and the lead-in benefitted the baseball game. Pirates-Cardinals drew 1.02 million viewers for a non-exclusive telecast, the most-watched Wednesday night baseball game since August of 2011. Despite not being in Pittsburgh, the game drew an relatively high 7.3 rating in the Steel City, their highest-ever on ESPN for a non-Sunday game.
I guess… you could say… the force… was with them. Sorry.
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