WWE joins MLS, NBA, WNBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB to help kids through Beyond Sport

Today at Yankee Stadium, WWE Executive Vice President of Creative Development and Operations, Stephanie McMahon and former WWE Champion turned entrepreneur, Fox News financial analyst and now philanthropist, John Layfield joined a group of 250 global delegates at the Beyond Sport Summit.

Beyond Sport is a global organization that promotes, develops and supports the use of sport to create positive social change across the world in three ways:

Beyond Sport Summit: The Beyond Sport Summit is an annual event that brings together the best sport-led social innovators with influential, global leaders to address sports’ role in driving positive social change.

Beyond Sport Awards: The Beyond Sport Awards program provides a package of funding and business support annually to projects across the world that use sport to address issues within their communities.

Beyond Sport World: Beyond Sport World is an online networking platform that allows any organization across the globe involved in sport and development to promote their activities and connect.

At today’s Summit, more than 80 professional sports teams from around the world collaborated to see how they can make positive changes in their local communities around the world. These teams are represented by their owners, CEOs, presidents as well as sports legends like Dikembe Mutombo, Bob Lanier, Brian Burke and WWE’s Alumni, John Layfield.

“I met the founder, Nick Keller in Africa. Beyond Sport facilitates information between charities and they use sport for social change. Tony Blair and Desmond Tutu are involved in Beyond Sport and that speaks volumes about the organization,” said Layfield who now splits his time living in both New York City and Bermuda.

“In Bermuda, we’re using rugby as a means to help at-risk kids. The draw of playing rugby comes with a curriculum of mandatory school attendance, homework, not joining gangs and staying out of trouble. Basketball, baseball or soccer is used as a draw to reach kids, ” the former WWE Champion explained.

In stark contrast to the materialistic and egocentric character of JBL he portrayed in WWE, an enthusiastic Layfield added “Sport in and of itself teaches lots of life lessons. We use sport as a conduit to reach out to these kids and help them in other aspects of society. There are lots of great charities around the world using sports to help kids in their communities but they’re not working together. Beyond Sport allows them all to learn from one another and work together and to have a global impact on society.”

For more information, visit https://www.beyondsport.org/united/