FLOSPORTS ANNOUNCES MULTI-YEAR PARTNERSHIP WITH THE MARY NUTTER COLLEGIATE CLASSIC TO LIVE STREAM TOURNEY ON FLOSOFTBALL.COM

Defending National Champion Oklahoma Sooners Headline List of College Teams Competing

Austin, TX (Aug. 25, 2016) -- FloSports today announced that it has partnered with the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic for a four-year agreement to live stream and archive games through 2020 exclusively on FloSoftball.com. The agreement comes on the heels of the 2016 Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic, which streamed live only on FloSoftball.com.

The Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic is the nation's largest and most prestigious preseason college softball tourney, featuring 50 top Division I teams. For the second year in a row, the Palm Springs, Calif., event will span two weekends -- Feb. 17-19 and Feb. 23-26 -- in 2017.

The lineup of teams includes last season's Women's College World Series champion, Oklahoma, as well as five other WCWS teams: LSU, Florida State, Michigan, Georgia, and UCLA.

"With a dedicated softball vertical, our goal is to transform the way the sport is covered at every level of competition," FloSports co-founder and CEO Martin Floreani said. "There's no better way to accomplish that goal than continuing our partnership with college softball's preeminent preseason tournament."

A combined 15 of the Top 25 teams in the final 2016 USA Today/NFCA Coaches poll will participate in the 2017 Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic, which began in 2004 and whose namesake was a softball icon as a player, coach and director of softball coaches' clinics across the U.S.

"We are pleased to extend our partnership with FloSoftball and FloSports," said Kirk Walker, the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic co-event producer along with Deb Hartwig of JustSOFTBALL. "The opportunity to work directly with such a dynamic and growing leader in sports media is tremendous. We're excited to provide immediate online access to the incredible competition of so many top Division 1 softball programs. FloSoftball does what no other media company can in the sport of softball by covering every inning on every field to audiences near and far. The Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic takes great pride in providing teams, coaches, and fans the best softball in the world each February and with the partnership of FloSoftball, we can grow the sport and the exposure exponentially through multimedia resources."

Every game of the Mary Nutter Classic will be available live and via replay exclusively on FloSoftball.com via FloPRO subscription, which offers unfettered access to live and archived footage of top club and college softball events, original documentaries on stars of the sport, a library of technique videos and more.

For more information, visit FloSoftball.com.

ABOUT FLOSPORTS

FloSports is a direct-­to-­consumer, subscription-­based sports media company located in Austin, Texas. Through live streaming of premier events, original video programming, and weekly studio shows, FloSports is unlocking a world of sports coverage that true fans have been waiting for. Current verticals under the FloSports header are Wrestling, Track, Grappling, MMA, Elite Fitness, Boxing, Softball, Gymnastics, Basketball, Volleyball, Tennis, eSports, and Cheerleading.

ABOUT THE MARY NUTTER COLLEGIATE CLASSIC

Kirk Walker, currently an assistant coach at UCLA, began the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic while serving at Oregon State, where he was the head softball coach for 18 years and is the winningest coach in Beavers' history.

The tournament was run under the auspices of Oregon State until it became an independently owned and operated event starting in 2013, when Walker left OSU and returned to UCLA, where he also coached from 1984-94.

Deb Hartwig, who runs JustSOFTBALL, has been involved with the event from its first year and became part owner of the event in 2013.

The two weekends of softball competition are hosted at the Big League Dreams Complex in Cathedral City, Calif., which was selected because of the idyllic Southern California weather in February and its destination draw for fans and teams to the resort community.

It is estimated that the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic brings in more revenue to the businesses in the Coachella Valley than every other event except the Bob Hope PGA Classic. 

Teams are selected and invited to create the highest RPI event in the country as well as creating a diverse regional mix of teams representing the entire country.