The SXSW festival in Austin, Texas has just gotten bigger with the addition of sports programming. Organizers announced today that SXsports will feature appearances from ESPN’s Bill Simmons, Nate Silver and others.
Organizers announced that SXsports will kick off on Friday, March 7, starting with Peter Guber, a film producer who is now part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He is also co-executive chairman of the Golden State Warriors.
On Saturday, March 8, Simmons and Silver, two widely read columnists now based at ESPN. Simmons, who has been at ESPN.com since 2001, is the founder of Grantland.com. Silver recently left The New York Times to join ESPN, taking his popular FiveThirtyEight with him. He is known for correctly predicting the previous two presidential elections and will use his skills to analyze sports. At SXSW, the two will talk about sports and media.
Other speakers at SXsports include Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury, USA Today’s George Schroeder and Jeff Beckham and Tribal Sciences’ Mike Vasquez. Another interesting program will focus on keeping fans connected with teams after they leave the stadium.
The deadline to submit films to be considered for the program is Nov. 14. More programming will be announced on Oct. 14.
image: SXSW.com