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There is never a bad time to visit Miami Beach; we all know that. Yet, when you commingle Beach Polo, AMG performance vehicles and an enthusiastic and overly joyous crowd, your visit to South Florida suddenly escalates to a higher plane. Mercedes-Benz, a genius with meshing their brand with respected and well-known sporting and entertainment events such as New York Fashion Week and the U.S. Open, decisively chose its AMG performance unit to integrate with the 8th Annual tournament, now dubbed AMG Miami Beach Polo World Cup.
Now in their second year as title sponsor of the tournament, the German luxury automaker felt a compelling story could be told by sponsoring the Sport of Kings. You see, Polo reflects on the power and performance of the thoroughbred ponies bred and trained from birth for the sport. The physical play of the game, skills of the players, manipulation of the horses and fast pace of the matches correlates with AMG’s “one man, one engine” philosophy as well as the company’s ability to build some of the most daring and performance enhanced vehicles on the road today. The sponsor entitlements also allowed AMG to commemorate Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Miami & Mentoring Resource Center by way of the authentic Social Polo 2011 shirts ($175) with 100% of the proceeds being charitable. In all, $17,500 was raised for the charity.
The entertaining and energetic weekend consisted of both male and female Match Plays, a horse parade, LA Martina Fashion Show, a concert with reggae band Inner Circle and a John Walsh hosted (America’s Most Wanted) private event to benefit the center for Exploited Children. Walsh is also an ardent player for the AMG Polo team and rightfully enjoyed his time in the sand. AMG also unleashed its all-new 2012 CLS63 AMG and its new AMG biturbo V8 engine instilled with up to 550 horsepower. I had the pleasure of experiencing this luxurious and sporty beast a few months back in San Diego. The kinetic energy between man and machine is one of the most glorifying experiences when you unite the vehicle. So I really didn’t mind seeing the CLS63 AMG on display at the AMG Miami Beach Polo Tent. Yet, others were enamored with the four-door sports car and grinned from ear to ear. As well, the gull-winged Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG was a prominent component of the aesthetically pleasing environment as it took on double duty at the host hotel, The Raleigh, and at the beach.
Although I’m not the most well versed fan of Polo, I quickly educated myself and became intrigued with the sport which dates back some 3,000 years. The equation for beach polo features two teams of three gallant players who battle in an enclosed sanded area with the objective to score points by hitting a rubber or leather inflated ball with a mallet into the opponent’s goal. There are four seven-minute periods called chukkers and the team with the most goals at the end of regulation wins. Now I was all dialed in and conversed with players, fans, social elite and sponsors as if I were the weekend’s host. The “aaahhhhss” and “ooohhhs” became the standard audio during Match Play while DJs and live musical entertainment kept everyone on their toes at intermissions.
Watch viewing at the Hublot pop-up boutique distracted me often and Grey Goose definitely kept everyone in the VIP loose. It’s a day on the beach watching Polo. How much better does it get?
