Some familiar faces have been seen throughout Los Angeles this season.
It was an eventful weekend for the Los Angeles Sparks in their last week of the WNBA regular season. Ahead of the Sparks 77-68 victory over the Minnesota Lynx on Sunday afternoon, a pair of players saw their faces plastered on the side of a Metro Rail train on Friday afternoon in Santa Monica.
The Los Angeles Sparks and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) have partnered up to showcase women’s sports and the Sparks on their Expo Line.
“The partnership with the Sparks is really a special partnership,” said Metro Marketing executive Glen Becerra. “It’s really the first of its kind in Los Angeles.”
With Metro being one of the leaders in the industry in regard to sports partnerships especially with women’s sports. This endeavor with the Los Angeles Sparks does just that with their promotion of the women’s game in Los Angeles.
For the second year in a row, both contingencies are focusing on the promotion of the women’s game and the team to encourage attendees to ditch the traffic and high parking costs that plague a buzzing city in Los Angeles. By “Going Metro,” this gives fans an alternative form of transportation to travel with to games.
“Our goal every year is to be world-class,” Becerra said. “and to have a world-class athlete come and support your system in a partnership, I think it says a lot about what we’re trying to accomplish here at Metro.”
The finished product of the train wrap was formally announced at the Downtown Santa Monica station with the Sparks brass, including Kalani Brown and Maria Vadeeva in attendance along with the Metro workers who made this possible.
The train wrap featuring Sparks players Candace Parker, Nneka Ogwumike, Chelsea Gray, Chiney Ogwumike, Alana Beard, Brown, and Vadeeva is seen on a Metro train that solely runs on the Expo Line that spans from Santa Monica to Downtown Los Angeles. Fans attending games can take this line to the Pico Station for a plethora of Sparks home games throughout the season.
With Brown and Vadeeva in attendance, they were able to see their faces on the train and were excited about the visibility that this will bring to them and the team as a whole throughout the city. The two have been on billboards before but being seen in this manner is different.
“I’m excited because they picked a cute picture,” Brown said as she fondly looked at her portrait behind her. “I’ve never had my face or been a part of anything this big.”
This campaign with the team only runs throughout the season but both Metro and the Sparks are in communication year-round planning the next wrap advertisement.
With the Sparks hosting the second-round elimination playoff game at Staples Center this weekend, this would be an opportunity for fans in attendance to take the train and probably travel on the infamous train for a noon game start on Sunday.