The sports media trade organization Sports Video Group (SVG) has partnered with the Alma Foundation to launch a charity fund "dedicated to providing assistance to industry professionals and their families in need," SVG said in a statement. All table and individual ticket proceeds from SVG's Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame, to be held Dec. 13 at the New York Hilton, will go to the tax-deductible fund.
"The sports-television industry is a family of talent, creatives, techs, and crew who depend on each other in the studio and the field and now, with the SVG Sports Broadcasting Fund, at home," said Ken Aagaard, SVG Broadcasting Fund Advisory Board chairman. "In a business underpinned by a freelance workforce, it is especially important that we develop a process for helping out our peers and their families when they are struck by serious misfortune." The Sports Video Group was formed in 2006 to "support the professional community that relies on video, audio, and broadband technologies to produce and distribute sports content," according to its website.
It inducts Jack Buck, Bill France Jr. and Dick Ebersol, among others, into the Hall of Fame this year.
"The underwriting of the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame, which makes possible the seed donation to the Sports Broadcasting Fund, has been made possible by the support that nearly 200 year-round sponsors have given to the SVG organization," says SVG Chairman Steve Hellmuth. "The fund will become a lasting testament to SVG's commitment to serving the needs of the international sports-television community."
