Honor the Heroes of the Game, Preserve its History, Promote its Values & Celebrate Excellence EVERYWHERE Updated: 07/17/2018 PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME MEDIA FACT SHEET The following information is intended to provide media with an overview of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. MEDIA CONTACTS Pete Fierle, Chief of Staff & Vice President of Communications e: Pete.Fierle@ProFootballHOF.com o: 330-588-3622; c: 330-209-9464 Rachel Gutting, Communications Coordinator & Special Assistant to Office of the President e: Rachel.Gutting@ProFootballHOF.com o: 330-588-3671; c: 260-438-1820 ABOUT THE PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME Located in Canton, Ohio, the birthplace of the National Football League, the Pro Football Hall of Fame is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit institution with the Mission to Honor the Heroes of the Game, Preserve its History, Promote its Values, & Celebrate Excellence EVERYWHERE. Hundreds of thousands of fans from across the globe travel to Canton annually to experience The Most Inspiring Place on Earth! that chronicles America s most popular sport. Construction on Johnson Controls Hall of Fame Village, an $899 million development project that includes ten main components, is underway in Canton to transform the Hall of Fame s campus.
THE PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME S MISSION, VALUES, VISION, CREED & PURPOSE MISSION Honor the Heroes of the Game Preserve its History Promote its Values Celebrate Excellence EVERYWHERE VALUES Commitment Integrity Courage Respect Excellence VISION It s not just the past, it s the future; It s not just about Canton, it s the world; It s not just a great museum for football, it s a message of Excellence EVERYWHERE! CREED We protect the Game by making it SAFER We grow the Game by promoting its VALUES We elevate the Game by LOVING those who helped build it PURPOSE To help EVERY fan experience a Hall of Fame Life by creating The Most Inspiring Place on Earth! COMMITMENT INTEGRITY COURAGE RESPECT EXCELLENCE -2-
MEDIA SITE A vast amount of information on the Pro Football Hall of Fame can be found on the Hall s media site at ProFootballHOF.com/media (Password: Excellence). The media site includes Hall of Fame publications such as the Pro Football Hall of Fame Media Guide, archived press releases, photos and video that may be downloaded for editorial purposes. THE HALL ON SOCIAL MEDIA The Pro Football Hall of Fame is active on social media platforms and can be found @ProFootballHOF on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube. PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME ON SIRIUSXM RADIO Pro Football Hall of Fame Radio on SiriusXM has been called the best new show on NFL Radio. Hall of Fame Executive Director and noted historian Joe Horrigan, Hall of Fame Selector Howard Balzer and a special Gold Jacket co-host talk all things Hall of Fame and welcome Gold Jackets and other special guests to the show. PLAN YOUR VISIT The Pro Football Hall of Fame s website provides full details for fans planning a visit. Hours, admission rates, travel information, event calendar, membership options and more can be found at ProFootballHOF.com/visit/. HALL OF FAME EXPERIENCES Hall of Fame Experiences provides fans with official packages and VIP access to events including the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement Week Powered by Johnson Controls and the Super Bowl. Official Ticket Packages provide fans with VIP experiences, premium seating, and parties with Pro Football Hall of Famers. Full info can be found at HOFexperiences.com. COMMITMENT INTEGRITY COURAGE RESPECT EXCELLENCE -3-
INSIDE THE HALL The Pro Football Hall of Fame is a world-renowned museum that represents its sport in many colorful and entertaining ways. The Hall of Fame continually enhances its exhibits and displays to provide guests with an immersive and experiential visit to The Most Inspiring Place on Earth! Visitors enter the museum through the grand lobby at the center of the building. This area also features a special exhibit gallery with ever-changing themed displays. Currently on display in this exhibit area is the Hunt/Casterline Pro Football Hall of Fame Card Collection which opened in July 2016. The exhibit showcases the rarest, highest graded, and most valuable football card collection in the world featuring a rookie card for each Hall of Fame player to date. The most-significant pieces of the 300,000-plus collection that dates to 1888 are displayed. The collection s creators are Dan Hunt, President of FC Dallas and son of Hall of Famer Lamar Hunt, founder of the American Football League and Kansas City Chiefs; and Robert Casterline from Casterline Goodman Gallery, Partner. Guests then begin their visit by walking through a time tunnel of images featuring players from current years spanning back to the beginning of the National Football League. The visitor experience explodes with a visually dynamic and interactive two- COMMITMENT INTEGRITY COURAGE RESPECT EXCELLENCE -4-
level exhibit area in the Hall of Fame s original rotunda. The NFL s First Century Gallery opened in the spring of 2013. The center of the ground level includes a towering bronze statue of Jim Thorpe, considered a legend of pro football dating back to his days with the Canton Bulldogs beginning in 1915. The exhibits on the first level present a panoramic view using high-tech interactives and one-of-a-kind artifacts to tell the story of professional football, from its humble beginnings in the early 20th century to the worldwide phenomenon it has become today. The second floor of The NFL s First Century features historical information regarding professional football in several dramatic themes. Inspirational stories of the game s pioneers, great players, coaches, and circumstances are told in vivid detail. Pro football s societal impact is also documented in Road to Equality and Pop Culture. Bringing these themes to life are audio and video interactives and larger-than-life photographic murals. Perhaps the most emotional stop during a tour of the museum is the Hall of Fame Gallery that houses the bronze busts of each of the Hall of Famer. Visitors also have the opportunity to learn about each member of the Hall through touch screen kiosks that include bios, photos, and videos on the inductees. After the Hall of Fame Gallery, guests proceed to the newly opened theater presenting A Game for Life. This extraordinary cutting edge, multi-sensory immersive theater features holographic representations of Hall of Fame legends Joe Namath, George Halas and Vince Lombardi. The experience provides great inspiration to fans by showing them how the game of football also teaches lessons about life. The stories of numerous Hall of Famers, including Jim Kelly, Steve Largent, Alan Page, Jim Brown, Warren Moon and Curtis Martin, are shared. A Game for Life was produced and created by some of the leading talent in the film industry and has been receiving rave reviews since its opening in July 2016. The Pro Football Today Gallery examines contemporary themes in the NFL. This area is filled with mementos from recent history-making performances including many milestone moments from the current NFL season. Artifacts are continuously placed on display as they added to the Hall s extensive collection. The Lamar Hunt Super Bowl Gallery chronicles, in dramatic fashion, the exciting history of the game from Super Bowl I to present. The gallery uses one-of-a-kind COMMITMENT INTEGRITY COURAGE RESPECT EXCELLENCE -5-
artifacts, exciting game footage and interactive kiosks to help tell the story of how the Super Bowl has become a global event. Super Bowl Theater, a turntable experience, presents the most recent NFL season and Super Bowl in spectacular fashion using the latest technology and the creative works of NFL Films. As visitors leave the exhibit level of the Hall and return to the ground floor, they enter an interactive area that includes many exciting hands-on experiences including a Madden EA Sports video game suite. THE RALPH WILSON, JR. PRO FOOTBALL RESEARCH & PRESERVATION CENTER The Mission of the Pro Football Hall of Fame is to Honor the Heroes of the Game, Preserve its History, Promote its Values & Celebrate Excellence EVERYWHERE! Nowhere is this mission more evident than inside the Ralph Wilson, Jr. Pro Football Research and Preservation Center. Here is where the documentary evidence of the history of professional football is preserved. Within this vast archive is more than 40 million pages of documents and primary source materials including personal papers, special collections, publications, teams and league records, and oral and video histories relating to individuals and the history of professional football. It also archives a collection of more than six million photographic images. Additionally, the Research and Preservation Center is the repository for the Hall of Fame s artifact collections that includes more than 30,000 individual objects. Together, the archives and artifact collections serve to preserve an enduring record of the sport, its past, and the Legends who made pro football America s most popular sport. GRIDIRON GLORY TRAVELING EXHIBITION The Pro Football Hall of Fame is currently touring the largest traveling exhibition in its history Gridiron Glory: The Best of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The 6,000 square-foot exhibit features hundreds of artifacts from the Hall of Fame s collection and captures the essence of the Hall of Fame experience. Many of the artifacts are being exhibited for the first time. The exhibit has been featured in every Super Bowl city since its opening. This interactive multimedia experience also includes new material from NFL Films, immersive fan experiences and a specially-designed Hometown Tribute section to spotlight the local team. There is also specially-made educational programming, an on- COMMITMENT INTEGRITY COURAGE RESPECT EXCELLENCE -6-
site retail element and Hall of Famers themselves will make special appearances throughout its run. HISTORY OF THE PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME The Pro Football Hall of Fame is located in Canton, Ohio, for three primary reasons; (1) the American Professional Football Association, later renamed the National Football League, was founded in Canton on Sept. 17, 1920. (2) the Canton Bulldogs were an early-day pro football power, even before the days of the NFL. They were also the first two-time champion of the NFL in 1922 and 1923. The great Jim Thorpe, the first bigname athlete to play pro football, played his first pro football with the Bulldogs, starting in 1915. (3) Canton citizens early in the 1960s launched a determined and wellorganized campaign to earn the site designation for their city. The National Football League awarded the site for the Hall of Fame to Canton in 1961. Groundbreaking for the original construction took place on August 11, 1962 and the Hall opened its doors for the first time on September 7, 1963. Four expansions were completed over the years (1971, 1978, 1995, and 2012-13) that have resulted in the museum growing from its original 19,000 square feet to today s 118,000-squarefoot football facility. 2018 PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME ENSHRINEMENT WEEK POWERED BY JOHNSON CONTROLS Each year, tens of thousands of fans, VIP guests and the dignitaries gather in Canton, Ohio to celebrate the Enshrinement of the newest class of enshrinees. The celebration has grown significantly in stature and now serves as a bookend to the NFL s regular season along with the Super Bowl. The Class of 2018 consists of BOBBY BEATHARD, ROBERT BRAZILE, BRIAN DAWKINS, JERRY KRAMER, RAY LEWIS, RANDY MOSS, TERRELL OWENS and BRIAN URLACHER. The 2018 Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement Week Powered by Johnson Controls takes place on Aug. 2-5. It kicks off with the annual Hall of Fame Game (Baltimore Ravens vs. Chicago Bears) at the spectacular Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium. The following night at the Gold Jacket Dinner, more than 130 Hall of Famers form a gauntlet for the Class of 2018 to COMMITMENT INTEGRITY COURAGE RESPECT EXCELLENCE -7-
make their way to center stage to receive the coveted Hall of Fame Gold Jacket. The Enshrinement Ceremony takes place on Saturday, Aug. 4 at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium and was televised live by the Hall s partners, NFL Network and ESPN. The festivities wrapped up with the Enshrinees Roundtable on Sunday afternoon and Concert for Legends featuring Maroon 5 and Lee Brice on Sunday evening. HALL OF FAME PROGRAMS The Pro Football Hall of Fame s achieves its Mission to Honor the Heroes of the Game, Preserve its History, Promote its Values & Celebrate Excellence EVERYWHERE through a number of events and programs such as: The Hometown Hall of Famer, a national program of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and sponsored by the Ford Motor Company. The program honors the support of Hall of Famer s Road to Canton by their hometown. Hall of Famers return to their hometowns to present their high school, college, or community with a historic commemorative, a 45-pound, 3 x 4 bronze plaque, during a ceremony in front of school assemblies or football halftimes. The Heart of a Hall of Famer educational series provides students the opportunity to learn first-hand what it took beyond athletic ability for legendary Heroes of the Game to achieve success on and off the field. The program focuses on the Pro Football Hall of Fame s core values of commitment, integrity, courage, respect and excellence. Dozens of programs are hosted across the country and any school can connect via PC/MAC/IOS/Android device to view the program live. Heart of a Hall of Famer is provided free to schools courtesy of the Hall s partner Extreme Networks. The Pro Football Hall of Fame/US Army Award for Excellence Program honors the nation s top sophomore, junior, and senior athletes who display the values, shared by the Hall and the US Army, of commitment, integrity, courage, respect and excellence. Hundreds of applications are submitted to the Hall of Fame each fall from which comes the selection of 25 finalists. These individuals are then recognized by all their classmates, teachers, administrators, and community leaders in a school assembly during which Gold Jackets present the finalist plaque to the students. The finalists and their families later attend the Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement Week Powered by Johnson Controls and are honored by Gold Jackets at a luncheon at the Hall of Fame during which the winner of the Award for Excellence is revealed. The Hall of Fame Ring of Excellence is one of three iconic symbols that represent the elite status of being a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in addition to the Gold Jacket and Bronzed Bust. Each member of the Class of 2018 will be honored in ring ceremonies held in their home stadium during the season. COMMITMENT INTEGRITY COURAGE RESPECT EXCELLENCE -8-