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AMERICAN CENTURY CHAMPIONSHIPJuly 15, 2010Carol ChaplinMark KillenJon MillerDoug UlmanSTATELINE, NEVADA THE MODERATOR: Folks, we're about to start the Charity Initiatives Press Conference. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. And thank you for joining us. As you all know, over the 20 years of this tournament, we've been able to raise over $3 million for charities. Today what we'd like to do is tell you about this year's plans for those fundraising efforts. And to that end I'd like to introduce Jon Miller, Executive Vice President NBC Sports, who has been instrumental in maintaining the events's philosophy to give back. John. JON MILLER: Thanks very much, Phil. Thank you everybody for being here. It's amazing this is our 21st year at the American Century Championship and probably the single most beautiful place in America. Period. No other qualifier needed. I'm proud of the job that our team at NBC Sports does. I'm proud of the partnership we have with American Century, and I'm really proud of the partnership that we have with the Lake Tahoe community. One of the most important things that we can do here, in addition to having fun and putting on an entertaining event, is to make sure that we give back to people and to organizations and to folks that need it. And one of the overriding themes of this event since day one is to make sure that stuff, that everybody working on it understands that we're giving back. So to that end I'm happy to say that once again we are right at the top of the list in terms of giving back to the charities here. We have a great partner here in Mark Killen, who is the Chief Marketing Officer of American Century Investments. Mark. MARK KILLEN: Thank you, Jon. I would say that this partnership is tremendous. What NBC has been able to do here with the tournament and bring the national viewing audience to Lake Tahoe has been tremendous. We've seen increases in attention and focus on this venue ever since we've started the relationship. But I think what's so special is that NBC, along with us, are very like-minded in that we think that it's very important to certainly celebrate performance, which we see out there on the golf course, but then do something great with money and the funds that we raise for charity. So and American Century Investments, you know, we're all about performance as a company, but there's something else that you should know, that more than 40 percent of our profits on an annual basis go to fund research to defeat cancer and other gene-based diseases. And since the year 2000, that number of funding has exceeded $750 million, which is a tremendous amount. And one of the great partners that we have is the Livestrong Foundation and Doug Ulman sitting to my right. We started a relationship with them that will extend for 10 years for certain and probably longer. And this is out of the shared passion we have to fight and defeat cancer. So we're just thrilled that he's here again this year and that we're designating Livestrong as the charity for the American Century Championship. So Doug. DOUG ULMAN: Thank you, Jon and Mark. It's an incredible honor to not only be here but be part of this event and be here in Lake Tahoe. The community has been so supportive over 20 years of this championship, and, again, it's humbling for us to even be associated with NBC and with American Century. We've enjoyed a five-year relationship thus far with American Century and eager to carry that into the future. So for us to have the opportunity to raise awareness about the cancer burden in the United States and globally is significant, to be out and see is signage during the coverage and out here on the course is incredibly significant. As I was out there this morning, I had cancer survivors come up and ask how they could utilize our services and be in touch with the organization. And for us that's extremely gratifying. So this year I'm proud to announce that once again Livestrong will be committing $100,000 of the proceeds from this tournament to local organizations here in Tahoe in partnership with Carol and her organization. We're just grateful to this community for hosting the event, for being a part of it, for being partners with us, and for allowing Livestrong to be so significant in this partnership. So thank you. CAROL CHAPLIN: Wow. How do you follow that up? Well, I have to echo what everyone has said here. This is truly a remarkable partnership and one that we look to every year. Here you are in the gem of the Sierras, with the gem of our events. The organizations that we were able to help last year with the help of NBC and American Century and Livestrong, it was the most amazing thing. We were able to select many, many organizations, exceeded ten, who were recipients of the funds that you donated. And a couple of them made huge differences to organizations that help actually cancer patients or screening for cancer patients as well as youth and sports organizations. I'll just give you a couple of examples. We have our local Barton Memorial Hospital who has a screening program for women's cancer patients, and these are women that don't have any other resources available and would otherwise be subjected to long illnesses and treatments, or not. So we were able to donate to that organization. The Relay For Life was a recipient as well, and then we had the Boys and Girls Club, Bread and Broth, which helps feed some of our unfortunate families in this community that actually last year were even more affected by the recession than ever before. And they were able to buy new equipment for food preparation. And then Tahoe Youth and Family Services who help youth at risk and they bought a van. JON MILLER: We saw the van. CAROL CHAPLIN: That helps some of the kids. As a matter of fact, some of the kids are out here today. And that helps get them to different places that they would never see. Some of these children don't have permanent homes. And they have very little family support. And this is their family and so are these people. Thank you so much. Q. After the tournament, the tournament organizers and local folks are going to be sitting down and talking about various charities that would be receiving the funds. Do you want to get into that a little bit, or is that just going to be something that happens then? JON MILLER: No, we rely on the folks here who are so close to the community to come and make recommendations. And they've got a very difficult task, because all of them are deserving. I think we were really proud last year that, at probably one of the worst times in our country's economy, that we were able to step up and really genuinely make a difference. And it worked. And we know the money went to good causes. And I think the same thing will happen again. And we obviously want to take everybody's input, but we're going to listen to those folks who can recommend to those folks who need it the most. And that's the way we'll do it. Q. I've lived here 30 years and have been involved with the tournament since the inception. And dealt with the majority of the charities you're helping. I don't have a question. I would just like to thank all of you for what you have done for the area and for these charities. I hope you fully understand what it does mean to a small community such as ours. We put on a big event like this. It's a wonderful thing to have people in town and get publicity for the area, but what you do for our community is tremendous. I think it's rude that Lance's touring France and can't be here (laughter) but thank you very much and we'll see you next year. JON MILLER: This is a much nicer place. I've been to both. DOUG ULMAN: He was actually texting me today while I was playing. He said, man, it's so hot over here and I can't wait for it to be over. I said, well, I'm looking out at Lake Tahoe and it's pretty nice. Q. I understand that Charles Barkley had a little text message for Lance today, didn't he? DOUG ULMAN: Charles recorded a video for his friend, Lance, that we will post online later and circulate the link. But you'll get a laugh out of it, I think. Q. If it's Charles, I'm sure. JON MILLER: I was going to say, as far as the tournament's concerned, we have a team of people led by Gary Quinn and Kevin Monaghan and the folks at NBC Sports who work very hard on this event every year and one of the challenges we have is to make sure that we have a great field. And this year I think we've exceeded all of our expectations in terms of the quality of the players here. We've welcomed 15 to 16 new stars led by guys like John Smoltz and Greg Maddox and Jared Allen and Rodney Harrison. And we've just got so much going for it. And I think the fans out there really have embraced this event and we love being in Lake Tahoe. We love being on this weekend, and hopefully you'll be here for a long, long time to come. Q. We're also hoping that that 10:10 tee time gets a few people out to buy tickets and help charity. JON MILLER: Quite an impressive list. But Jordan and Romo and Maddox and Smoltz and you're going to have pretty good pairings. And I think you're going to see a very competitive event with some new names on the leaderboard, which I think will be a lot of fun for people, too. THE MODERATOR: Thank you all. End of FastScripts |
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