Watch: Fun ESPN Into Darkness Recreation + Football, Baseball, NASCAR & Boxing Marketing

The worlds of sports and Star Trek are coming together with a number of new promotions and events related to the upcoming release of Into Darkness. Check out a video with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith recreating a scene from Into Darkness. Plus the Rays and A’s are having Star Trek events this week and NFL player Troy Polamalu and NASCAR’s RFR are hosting advance screenings. 
 

 

ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith Goes Into Darkness

Paramount is making sure that no stone goes unturned with Star Trek Into Darkness and that includes promoting the film in the world of sports. They have been running commercials on ESPN, Fox and elsewhere during sports shows for the last couple of weeks and over the weekend they worked with ESPN to make this hilarious recreation of a scene from the movie, starring ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith in all the roles.

UPDATED: NASCAR, Baseball, Football and Boxing Into Darkness

UPDATE: NASCAR driving team Roush Fenway Racing (RFR) is hosting a special private screening of Into Darkness on May 8th at 7 pm at Concord Mills Mall (in Concord, NC) alongside some key members of Roush Fenway Racing. To attend you must RSVP by tonight (May 7th( to roushstartrek.concordmills@gmai.com. Also, at 6:45 pm ET members of RFR and some of the stars from Star Trek: Into Darkness will share behind the scenes stories during a pre-screening Google+ Hangout. More details roushfenway.com.


NASCAR team special screening

For their Friday May 10th game against the San Diego Padres, the Tampa Bay Rays are holding a special "Star Trek Into Darkness Night" at Tropicana Field. If you buy a special ticket package you can get a seat ion the press level and a special edition Star Trek themed T-shirt. You can also take pictures with Star Trek characters, enjoy special trailers of the new movie, and participate in contests to win prizes. The deadline to order tickets is May 8, at 11:59 p.m. ET. More details at the official Rays MLB site


Tampa Bay Rays Star Trek Into Darkness T-Shirts

And the Oakland A’s are also doing a Star Trek Into Darkness promotion with an Into Darkness themed fireworks show on May 18th (against the Royals). More details at the MLB Oakland A’s page.


Oakland A’s promoting their Star Trek Fireworks Night (Image courtesy of Ballgamers.com)

Turning to football, there is a contest with Lockerdome.com to attend an advanced screening of Into Darkness on May 11th with Pittsburg Steeler’s safety (and Star Trek fan) Troy Polamalu. The screening will be in the San Diego area (and contest doesn’t include travel). More details ant Lockerdome.com.


Win chance to see movie on May 11th with Troy Polamalu

Finally over the weekend Paramount was one of the sponsors of the Mayweather v Guerrero boxing pay per view event, from Las Vegas. They ran a number of Star Trek promos during the event and the Into Darkness logo was even part of the boxing ring.


Star Trek Into Darkness part of the ring for Mayweather v Guerrero

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Into darkness into the boxing ring love the marketing

“Damn that’s messed up.”

LOL

Be awesome if one of the theme parks would do a “Into Darknes Night” featuring ” dark rides’ (the rides run without lights Universal usually does it at Halloween)……..hmmmmm Im guessing Disney’s out.

Say what you will about these new Trek films, but there is no denying the new heights they have brought the franchise too. Exciting

I don’t care about reviews anymore, just make lots and lots of money, Trek!!!

I will definately have to make a call to a my friend back home who works for the Rays, see if I can’t get my hands on one of those shirts.
Very cool.

Not a fan of Stephen Smith…but ‘damn, that’s messed up’…

Super cool about the NASCAR tie-in. If I lived in Charlotte I’d go, even though I don’t follow any Roush Fenway drivers ( I’m a Dale Jr. girl on the weekends that I still pay attention to racing).

I hope this breaks $650mil!

@8. Phil’
“Not a fan of Stephen Smith…but ‘damn, that’s messed up’…”

Agreed.

And may I just point out that all the other characters had an instrumental line of dialogue or part to play in that scene we all know so well, but what is the one take-away he has for Uhura? Standing in the middle of the bridge putting her hand to her mouth. I realize it is just a parody, but it’s pretty sad when he spotlights that controversial moment we discussed around here as Uhura’s only contribution.

Trek in a boxing ring. Trek on ESPN. Trek in a NASCAR track.

Trek EVERYWHERE.

Trek Trek Trek Trek Trek.

I love it.

For those of you who weren’t yet around during the TOS movie series, this kind of publicity was just unheard of. Paramount *never* pushed the TOS movies like this. Its awesome. Enjoy it.

@9 Phil,
“Domestic box office is tracking north of 90MM now….”

Yeah who was it who said it won’t do as well as the last movie domestically?

Kind of silly considering this is in 3D. It will sell at least as many tickets as the last movie and make considerably more because of the 3D premium. I know I plan on seeing it 2D initially, and if its still in theaters when I get around to it, I’ll see it again in 3D. I suspect many fans will do that as well.

@14. Well, I think I’m guilty of saying it would probably do as well as the last one domestically, and I’ll happily admit to being wrong if I am.

@12. Agreed on the Uhura observation, though I suspect further comment at this point is just beating a dead horse now…

This is awesome!! Great seeing trek getting promoted like this.

@9 as much as I would love for Into Darkness to make 90m opening weekend, I just don’t think it will. There’s still a stigma of ‘Star Trek’ in this world. I’m think 80m at best. However, I would be happy to be proven wrong. I hope it opens at 100m and we get another 3 trek movies!!

Anybody else notice that Timewarner is promoting 2009 Star Trek on is pay per view!?

Dang! Marketing is working overtime on this one! Go, go, go!

Damn man, had you told us about this screening in North Carolina a bit earlier I could’ve RSVP’d before they ran out of room.

Step up your game, Trekmovie.com.

Polamalu would make a great Nausican.

@16 I think Trek has a great chance to break $100m opening up. I’m gonna be optimistic. :)

#15, Phil, #12, Curious, Agreed, it sux, but ESPN may not be so sensitive to women as we are. Too bad he didn’t say a bit of Uhura’s dialogue. Darn it.

but …
“He’d let you die”
“Damn, that’s messed up!” … soooo funny!

A little amount of comments this week.
We commoners are still waiting for the premiere.

Iron-Man 3 was pretty good. I’d give it 7 out of 10. A solid movie.
However, I am hoping now for much more out of Trek!

Great clip from ESPN- Made me laugh out loud actually! Thanks for sharing these :D

Great marketing for this movie!

The last thing I need is the person that annoys me the most from my sports life (Stephen A) infecting my Trek fandom… gahhhh!

BUT, I was thinking the same thing. that IS messed up haha.

There is not so much marketing over here in Germany! The 2009 movie had a lot more attention in the media!
Btw: 6 hours from now i will know if JJ made it again!

Here in Russia, we’ve got some billboards up now, plus cinema sites are running banner ads. No sign of the Big “E” or the crew…just an angry Cumberbatch walking away from a burning future-London.

hmmm… YES, i think this movie WILL appeal to meatheads… ROFLMAO!

what next? soccer hooligans? NO! HOCKEY!!

Steven A… not bad….

Love his Uhura impression … lol