{"id":290095,"date":"2026-04-28T18:48:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T18:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/290095\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T18:48:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T18:48:07","slug":"verizon-pitch-contest-offers-20000-to-bakersfield-small-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/290095\/","title":{"rendered":"Verizon pitch contest offers $20,000 to Bakersfield small businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) \u2014 Bakersfield small business owners have a chance to compete on a national stage for cash and prizes tied to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>Verizon announced the Small Business Super Pitch, a contest inviting entrepreneurs to present their businesses for a chance to win a $20,000 grand prize and tickets to the World Cup final.<\/p>\n<p>Twenty finalists will be selected to compete in live pitch events this June in Kansas City, Houston, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Travel expenses will be covered for the finalists.<\/p>\n<p>Regional winners will advance to the final round on July 17 near the site of the World Cup final in New York and New Jersey.<\/p>\n<p>This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n<p>Stay in Touch with Us Anytime, Anywhere:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) \u2014 Bakersfield small business owners have a chance to compete on a national stage for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,155,153,152,123931,123933,123934,84319,162,123932],"class_list":["post-290095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-downtown","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-bakersfield-small-business","tag-business-pitch-contest","tag-entrepreneur-contest","tag-fifa-world-cup-2026","tag-kern-county-news","tag-verizon-small-business-super-pitch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}