Record title: Largest Virtual Exercise Class
Date: December 2010
Brand: NFL’s Atlanta Falcons
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Business Challenge
To help tackle Georgia’s youth obesity problem the Atlanta Falcons Community Relations teamwanted a unique way to promote the importance of physical fitness.
Over the past five years, NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and the Atlanta Falcons Youth Foundation have implemented community programs to support physical education and healthy eating.
Their vision was a fun-filled physical education event which celebrated and praised children who wanted to stay physically fit, while simultaneously allowing children at home to watch and participate through a live web stream.
Guinness World Records Solution
With a goal of confronting childhood obesity, the Atlanta Falon’s CEO Arthur Blank enlisted the help of HOPSports Training Systems – the interactive youth physical education provider – to attempt a new Guinness World Records achievement for the Largest Virtual Exercise Class.
On the day of the attempt, Atlanta Falcons players, cheerleaders, members of the military and 2,288 students united at the Georgia Dome to challenge the existing Guinness World Records title.
For thirty minutes, record participants and children in classrooms across the U.S. watched via the live webcast and exercised simultaneously. Adjudicator Danny Girton Jr. presided over the day’s challenge and presented the official Guinness World Records certificate to an elated crowd at the culmination of the event.
Record Breaking Results
Media coverage of the record generated $300,000 in advertising equivalency with local broadcast hits on CBS Atlanta and Fox Sports, alongside a wealth of national coverage including the Huffington Post, MSN Sports and the New York Times.
Atlanta Falcon’s Linebacker, Stephen Nicholas, said: “It was fun to see the kids smiling, and it’s a good thing to teach the kids that working out can be fun and it makes you feel better as a person, it was a good experience.”
