IFPA to appear on Good Morning America

Following the media coverage generated at this year’s AAMA Distributor Gala, the AAMA has continued its diligent work on many other exciting public relations projects, all designed to promote the amusement industry and its products to the general public.

Most recently, the association has been working closely with representatives from Ruder Finn, a Chicago-based PR firm, on developing a segment featuring products from the coin-op amusement industry for Good Morning America (GMA). Good Morning America, one of the nation’s most popular morning talk shows since its inception in 1975, is broadcast daily to between three to five million viewers on ABC from a studio overlooking bustling Times Square in New York City. The show covers a combination of breaking news, interviews, weather, and in-depth reporting on a wide variety of special interest topics.

After several months of hard work, we are thrilled to announce that Good Morning America will be airing a segment on pinball games to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the flipper!

The 15 minute segment, which is scheduled to air on Friday, January 18th, will feature a variety of different pinball machines. Stern Pinball has generously created a unique Good Morning America pinball machine especially for the occasion, which will include GMA and ABC logos, plus likenesses of the show’s well known anchors Sam Champion, Chris Cuomo, Robin Roberts, and Diane Sawyer, as bobble heads in the playing field! Other popular games to be used on air will include Stern’s newest game, Wheel of Fortune, along with player favorites such as Spiderman, Pirates of the Caribbean, and World Poker Tour.

Each of the four show hosts will have one of the above listed machines to play during the segment and show off their flipper skills to a national audience. Industry pinball gurus Joshua and Zach Sharpe are also scheduled to appear on air to discuss the history of pinball, give tips and techniques to the hosts as they play, and most importantly, to remind the public to “get out and play” coin-op amusement games in their local bar, family entertainment center, or any other location where they may be found.

The Sharpe brothers have a long and strong history of involvement in the world of competitive pinball. Josh Sharpe played in his first pinball tournament in 1993 at the age of 13 and became the World Junior Pinball Champion in 1995. Bringing his passion for pinball with him to college, he formed the Illini Pinball Association in 1998 on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus. From there, Joshua created the PinBrawl World Team Pinball Championships, which have been held annually at the Pinball Expo in Chicago since 1999 and was the first competitive pinball event to feature four player teams. In the spring of 2006, with the help of pinball enthusiasts around the world, Joshua began the World Pinball Player Rankings and resurrected the defunct International Flipper Pinball Association (IFPA). The IFPA will be holding the World Pinball Championships on March 28-30, 2008 in the Las Vegas Pinball Hall of Fame; in conjunction with the Amusement Showcase International, scheduled to be held March 27-29 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The AAMA is continuing to work on our public relations efforts for 2008, and will keep you up-to-date on other interesting projects as they become finalized.