What is Multi-Culti+ ?

By Javier Saralegui, Founder and CEO, Danger TV, LLC

At DangerTV, Multi-Culti+ is both a vision and a mission to provide the very best in adventure and adrenaline content that both reflects and spurs the growing diversity of our country to explore (regardless of ethnicity)….everything!. At DangerTV, Multi-Culti + recognizes that adventure and adrenaline have invited you to get the best out of life, regardless of where you are from. Our content is your invitation. With shows from around the globe featuring diverse people rising to occasion after occasion, you start to realize that the brand is actually a metaphor for what sooner or later we all face: overcoming adversity.

However, if you take a look at the adventure-centric media landscape and as an extension, national park attendance, the absence of minority representation would drive one to wonder whether that promise of adventure and adrenaline is a promise that applies to everyone. Although minorities make up more than 37% of the general population they represent only 22% percent of park visitors*. The National Park Service is aware that a multi pronged effort from Spanish speaking rangers to campaigns that explain the appeal and low cost of enjoying the parks is needed. That’s a start but it also begs the question that if diversity is not represented in some way or fashion in campaigns of this nature inevitably, adventure and adrenaline’s appeal as it pertains to the National Parks (and other brands that want to cloak themselves in adventure) will be minimal at best in their effectiveness.

Recognizing that need for broad representation is the essence of Multi-Culti+. At DangerTV, we recently partnered with Taffet Media (Mark Taffet ex-HBO Sports) to bring the International Sumo League or Sumo 2.0 to DangerTV’s FAST channel(s). With Sumo wrestlers from all over the word, including Hipanic American and African American wrestlers (as well as Russian, Moldavian and Brazilian to name a few), the International Sumo League is the epitome of inclusiveness with no shortage of adrenaline when you take into consideration that 400 lb wrestlers are throwing themselves around. Quick (avg. match time: 1 minute), easy to understand (shove your opponent out of the dohyo) and multicultural, it’s already enough of a game changer to merit New York Times coverage of Sumo 2.0’s first event at Madison Square Garden earlier this month.

Are other shows (let alone networks) as well as brands starting to recognize that reaching the Multi-Culti+ generation within adventure and adrenaline environments can provide them with a contextually relevant option and edge versus an urban backdrop? We think so. Two early examples that come to mind is Juan Pablo Quinones participating in the History Channel series Alone, who not only was the first Latino to participate in the series but also went on to win the ninth season of the survival competition. Quinones explained that outdoor survival skills were just part of life when you come from rural Mexico (which included harvesting scorpions!) and recently published his first survival guide, Thrive (jpquinones.com)

The other example that stood out was professional fishing guide Lael Johnson, an African American sponsored by Ford 150 trucks division testimonial on why he needed (and continues to need) the outdoors for his mental health and then added “I want to have more people who look like myself out in the outdoors again”.

We couldn’t say it better ourselves, the Multi-Culti+ generation’s invitation for adventure and adrenaline is waiting at DangerTV!