Creative Corner: Baller League, adidas Shanghai's shoebox store and women's football superstar brought back to life

Maybe it’s the onset of spring, but I’m feeling a little sporty this week which is the focus for this week’s Creative Corner.

Sport is never far from the headlines, but it’s increasingly making waves outside the sports pages as well as inside them.

On the fashion and showbiz front, Timothy Chalamet is doing a good job of keeping football shirts in the shop window and unless you’ve been living under a rock, you couldn’t have helped notice the biggest game of last weekend splashed all over the lifestyle pages – The Sidemen charity match at Wembley of course.

Sports has always been in the business of entertainment, but entertainment is now defining sport as much as athletes. Read on for some proper Ballers, an Adidas pop-up in China and the greatest striker since before Ronaldo.

Having a Baller

Now this is not a ‘campaign’ as such, but more a steady stream of creative hype-building that has brought together streamers, ex-players, musicians, actors and TV personalities to launch a new form of football in the UK. Dubbed, The Baller League, this six-a-side cage-like indoor version of the game has come over from Germany where it is already a hit, and entertainment is its business.

The influencer-led league - headlined by KSI for the UK version - sees former Premier League players, futsal players and celebrities face one another in 12 teams to win the league. The teams themselves are named after their illustrious managers which see the likes of Dave’s Santan FC, Maya Jama’s MVP United and Angry Ginge’s Yanited - pitted against Ian Wright and Chloe Kelly’s Wembley Rangers and Deportrio - managed by Alan Shearer, Micah Richards and Gary Lineker.

With a host of creators involved, there is already a stack of content flooding timelines with one-upmanship, banter and pranks sure to follow throughout the season. Matches will be streamed on Twitch, and YouTube and shown live on Sky Sports on Monday nights from the Copper Box Arena in Stratford and presented by Chunkz alongside Olivia Buzaglo.

As we’ve seen with boxing and the Sidemen charity games, the coming together of creators and sport is building new audiences that can compete with the mainstream and no doubt this will join them.

Boxing clever

Adidas is arguably the first sports brand to truly embrace fashion and entertainment when Run DMC convinced it to join forces back in the 80s, and its Shanghai store makeover celebrates the Shell Toe Superstar sneaker culture the hip-hop legends created.

Offering an immersive experience fusing music, skateboarding and street style, the four-storey store has been transformed into a giant stack of boxes resembling the brand’s iconic shoeboxes.

Inside the store, fashionistas and sneakerheads alike were treated to dance battles and skateboard showcases as they browsed the archives of the real Superstar – the legendary shell toe.

Image courtesy of adidas

An interview 100 years in the making

My last campaign features a woman who if alive today would have transcended her sport.

Lily Parr was arguably one of the greatest football players the world has seen. Not only did she score over 900 goals (more than Ronaldo), but her 30-year career came during a period when the FA banned women’s football. Regularly playing to crowds of over 46,000, Lily defied the authorities and laid the foundations for what women’s football is today.

Now, as part of its #WeSeeYou Network, Three, in partnership with Chelsea FC Women, has brought Lily ‘back to life’ for her to tell her story.

The mobile network worked alongside women’s football historian, Jean Williams to meticulously piece together Lily’s story, likeness and personality and through the use of AI technology, recreated her to sit opposite fellow England legend Karen Carney for a 3-minute interview.

The groundbreaking conversation, which took place around International Women’s Day to inspire the next generation of Lily’s, is the perfect demonstration of how AI technology can enhance, rather than replace, the human craft behind storytelling.

Well, that’s it for another week!

As ever, if you’re launching something that deserves a spot in Creative Corner, or have seen a campaign you just love, please do share it with us. Email paul.lucas@fanclubpr.com