Hopkins, Kelce Highlight Field for Madden NFL 20 Celebrity Tournament
We’re likely still weeks away from seeing sports played in their usual format, with physical head to head competition. That has led to events like the H-O-R-S-E competition, with the contestants isolated on their own with camera crews to try and make things interesting. For the most part, it’s been more centered on Esports, with the NBA 2K Players Tournament earlier this month the biggest one to take place. Earlier this week, it was announced that Wayne Gretzky and Alexander Ovechkin would face off in a best of three series on NHL 20 next week with proceeds going to support causes in both Edmonton and Washington, D.C. in their fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, there’s another major tournament coming to you on ESPN’s family of services as it was announced that there will be a Madden NFL 20 Tournament. The tournament will have a 16-player field with a mix of NFL players, media, musical artists along with UFC fighters. There will be a variety of formats for the tournament to be seen as the initial draw for the tournament will be televised on ESPN2 on April 19. After that, the contests will be spread around a variety of digital streams. ESPN plans on utilizing all of their digital platform in order to draw eyeballs to the tournament as games will be streamed on their Twitter page, their Twitch channel and their YouTube in addition to the ESPN app.
The field consists of current NFL players DeAndre Hopkins, Stefon Diggs, Cam Jordan, Travis Kelce, Melvin Gordon, Hollywood Brown, Devonta Freeman and Drew Lock. For the other half of the field, former UFC champions Daniel Cormier and Chris Weidman are in the mix, as are rappers Lil Yachty and YG. Former Colts punter Pat MacAfee, along with Katie Nolan and Omar Raja comprise the contingent of players that can represent ESPN in the tournament. Meanwhile, the final contestant in the tournament is someone that one can’t completely pigeonhole in a specific category as he’s a multifaceted individual. Of course, we’re talking about Snoop Dogg, who has done everything from release platinum records to cooking with Martha Stewart. He’s collaborated with everyone from Ice Cube to Dunkin’ Donuts.
We’re looking at a pretty eclectic field of characters to say the least. Five of the eight NFL players in the tournament have made the Pro Bowl in their career. Three of them have played in a Super Bowl and two (Jordan and Kelce) have been on the winning side of the biggest game of the NFL season. MacAfee was a Pro Bowl punter and was a member of the Colts’ team that fell short in Super Bowl XLIV to the Saints. Snoop Dogg is a huge sports fan and has coached football before. It’s safe to say that he has some ability of knowing how to potentially scheme a system that can help him win a couple games. As for the rest of the field, we’ll have to see what they bring to the table. Will there be upsets? It’s pretty much a given, as most single-elimination tournaments inevitably bring some of those.
Until the draw comes out with the matchups, it’s going to be tough to figure out who has the most favorable road to winning the title. One thing that we do know about this is that it will help take people’s minds off the fact that things have been such a struggle for everyone with the pandemic. The championship contest will take place on April 26 on ESPN2 with the winning player having a donation to Feeding America in the amount of $25,000 made on his or her behalf. Could a player like Nolan, Weidman or Cormier find a way to run the table and steal a championship to leave the NFL players on the outside looking in here? We’ll look more into the brackets once they get released but it should be highly entertaining. One has to think that the trash talk contingent should be in full swing, especially with Snoop Dogg in the mix.
Who’s your early pick to win the tournament?