New York Giants Get Schooled in Street Games for NFL PLAY 60 Campaign

“Our game, our house, our rules.”

So begins one spot in the New York Giants’ latest NFL PLAY 60 series, part of the NFL’s campaign to tackle childhood obesity. The game, however, isn’t football. It’s punchball, stickball, kickball — really, any-ball — as well as playground favorites like Double Dutch, hopscotch, and more.  The house? PS 279 in the Bronx, NY.

WATCH: Jason Pierre-Paul gets schooled in punchball.

WATCH: Jason Pierre-Paul gets schooled in punchball by a middle-school student known as Wonder Boy.

Rather than have Jason Pierre-Paul, Prince Amukamara, and Stevie Brown teach the middle-school students at PS 279 the basics of football, the New York Giants flipped the script. Instead, the students taught the three players their favorite street games.

“We let the students show the players the storied tradition of street games as a fun way to get out and play,” says Giants VP/Executive Producer Don Sperling. “So it was very empowering for the students and humbling but fun for our players.”

The campaign, which features several creative concepts around each player in 90-, 60-, 30-, and 15-second spots, was shot in late June using the team’s Sony F55 4K camera and NFL Films’ ARRI Alexa cameras. Big Blue Entertainment, the Giants’ in-house production team, wrote, produced, and edited the spots; the Giants’ community relations department coordinated with the school. Two NFL Films crews and one Giants crew shot the spots, which rolled out two weeks before the regular season.

WATCH: Prince Amukamara shows off his hula-hoop skills, learns some football fundamentals.

WATCH: Prince Amukamara shows off his hula-hoop skills, learns some football fundamentals.

After premiering the spots during preseason broadcasts, the Giants plan to air the spots across its various Giants media platforms, as well as local television partners WWOR Secaucus, NJ; WNYW New York; WNBC New York; and MSG Network. The spots will also play on the in-venue videoboards during Giants home games at MetLife Stadium.

For Sperling, a Yonkers, NY, native who grew up on the Bronx border, exploring the tradition of street games in New York City was a personal one.

“Street games has just been a passion of mine,” he says. “I can’t even count the number of stickball games I played as a kid. … And, in general, street games is some thing I grew up on. Now to be able to put it with the Giants and the community and kids, it’s like a dream come true. It really is.”

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