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| ESPN College Football | |
|---|---|
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| Also known as | ESPN College Football on ABC (2006–present) |
| Genre | American college football telecasts |
| Presented by | Various commentators |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 44 |
| Production | |
| Production locations | Various NCAA stadiums (game telecasts and halftime show) ESPN Headquarters Bristol, Connecticut,U.S. (studio segments) ABC and ESPN Studio,7 Hudson Square,Manhattan,New York City(studio segments) |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 210 minutes or until the game ends |
| Production company | ESPN |
| Original release | |
| Network | ESPN |
| Release | December 11, 1982 (1982-12-11) – present |
| Network | ABC |
| Release | September 2, 2006 (2006-09-02) – present |
| Related | |
| College Football Countdown College GameDay Saturday Night Football | |
ESPN College Football is the branding used for broadcasts ofNCAA Division I FBScollege football acrossThe Walt Disney Company properties includingABC,ESPN,ESPN DTC,ESPN+,ESPN2,ESPN3,ESPNews,ESPN Classic,ACC Network,SEC Network,ESPN Deportes andESPN Radio.ESPN College Football debuted on December 11, 1982.
ESPN College Football consists of four to five games a week, withESPN College Football Primetime, which airs at 7:30 on Thursdays. Saturday includesESPN College Football Noon at 12:00 Saturday, a 3:30 or 4:30 game that is not shown on a weekly basis, andESPN College Football Primetime on Saturday. A Sunday game,Sunday Showdown, was added for the first half of 2006 to make up for the loss ofSunday Night Football toNBC.
ESPN also producesCollege Football on ABC andSaturday Night Football in separate broadcast packages.
The American,ACC,Big 12,Conference USA,MAC,SEC andSun Belt are all covered by ESPN. Through its online armESPN3 and theESPN+ streaming service, ESPN carries a wide variety of other athletic conferences and games at lower divisions, spanning the full breadth of college football.
ESPN began airing taped college football games during the 1979 regular season, starting with a game betweenColorado andOregon. The network was limited to airing tape-delayed games because theNCAA controlled television rights through exclusive contracts. However, because bowl games operate outside the control of the NCAA, ESPN was able to air the1982 Independence Bowl betweenKansas State andWisconsin live (through a simulcast with theMizlou Television Network) – the first live football game televised on ESPN.
After the 1984 Supreme Court decision inNCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma allowed individual schools to negotiate television rights, ESPN began broadcasting live regular-season games during the1984 season, beginning with a game betweenBYU andPittsburgh on September 1, 1984.[1] The first live broadcast of a regular-season night game followed that night, between theFlorida Gators, who were ranked number 17, and theMiami Hurricanes, who were ranked number 10.[1]
In recent years, ESPN and ESPN2 air games at noon, which usually includes aBig Ten game. Both networks also air primetime games, typically featuring teams from theACC orSEC.
With the expansion of ESPN, including multiple networks and outlets, their coverage has likewise increased. In 2005, with the creation ofESPNU, over 300 games were aired on its networks.[2][3]
In 2007, the ESPN family of networks aired over 450 games. Also, they aired a weekly game onESPN Radio for the first time ever.[4] ESPN started that season with 25 hours of college football programming.[5]
Also, ESPNU has rapidly increased the coverage ofspring intramural team scrimmages with entire programs dedicated to this phenomenon.[6] In 2008, ESPN airedCollege GameDay fromFlorida Field prior to their spring scrimmage game.[7]
Starting with the 2007 season, ESPN began sublicensing games fromFox Sports Net, with the Big 12 Conference[8] (later extended until 2009)[9] and with thePacific-10 Conference.[10] However, the games cannot air during the “reverse mirror” slot.
During the 2008 season, ESPN aired over 400 games.[11]
Beginning in the 2010 season, ESPN acquired exclusive broadcast rights to theBowl Championship Series in a four-year contract, where all games in the BCS would be aired on ESPN.[12]
Also in 2010, the company launchedESPN Goal Line, a gametime-only channel that switches between games to show the most interesting plays, similar toNFL RedZone.
In 2012, ESPN reached long-term, 12-year agreements to retain rights to theRose Bowl,Orange Bowl, andSugar Bowl following the dissolution of the Bowl Championship Series.[13] In November, ESPN reached a 12-year deal to broadcast the remainder of the newCollege Football Playoff system, valued at around $470 million per-year, giving it continued rights to thePeach Bowl andFiesta Bowl, as well as theCotton Bowl Classic and theCollege Football Playoff National Championship.[14]
For the 2014–15 postseason, ESPN implemented a major overhaul of its on-air presentation and branding for college football withflat design and a score box in the bottom-right of the screen, which soft launched during theNew Orleans Bowl, and formally debuted alongside new graphics and theme music during the inaugural College Football Playoff games.[15][16][17] ESPN revamped its on-air presentation for college football again for the 2020 season, with a "test facility" theme, and a scoreboard along the bottom of the screen reminiscent ofMonday Night Football.[18]
In 2017, ESPN renewed its rights to the Big Ten, but lost its tier 1 rights to Big Ten football toFox Sports, meaning that it no longer has the first choices of games each week.[19][20]
In 2019, ESPN began a 12-year deal with theAmerican Athletic Conference, with at least 40 football games on ESPN linear networks and ABC per-season, and all other content onESPN+.[21][22] ESPN+ also acquired the third-tier media rights to most Big 12 teams, besides theTexas Longhorns (who had a partnership with ESPN andLearfield onLonghorn Network) andOklahoma Sooners (which had a partnership withFox Sports Oklahoma).[23][24] ESPN+ eventually acquired the Sooners' rights in 2022, in an agreement that would last through its exit to the SEC in 2024.[25][26]
In December 2020, ESPN announced a 10-year, $3 billion contract to hold the top media rights for the SEC beginning in 2024, ending its long-standing agreement with CBS, and seeing its flagship package of games move to ABC.[27][28]
In August 2022, it was reported that ESPN had backed out of negotiations to renew its rights to Big Ten athletics after the 2022 season, ending a relationship dating back to 1982.[20] The Big Ten ultimately signed with Fox, CBS (where its Big Ten package effectively replaced its SEC package in 2024), and NBC, with all three networks holding shares of its college football and basketball rights.[29][30]
In 2024, ESPN began to soft launch a revamp of its college football on-air presentation and branding, beginning with new graphics specific to SEC games on ABC, and a related design for College Football Playoff broadcasts—both of which switching to a centered scoreboard, and heavily incorporatingsidebars (known internally as "blitz towers", and also adopted byMonday Night Football) for statistics graphics to take advantage of the16:9 aspect ratio. A variant of this design was adopted full-time for all otherESPN College Football games and studio shows beginning in the 2025 season, shifting from the more "cinematic" look of the previous package to one intended to "encapsulate the college football atmosphere".[31][32][33][34] Additionally, while remaining on ABC, the graphics used for SEC games have since been extended for use on all ESPN platforms, includingSEC Network and its streaming component SEC Network+.
ESPN airsSpring Football games and coverage.[6] Coverage includesCollege Football Final which wraps the annual Spring Games.[7]
During the regular season, ESPN airs pre-selected Thursday night marquee matchups. ESPN2 airs pre-selected Friday night contests from lesser known Division I schools. In late October and November, games almost exclusively from theMid-American Conference air on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, usually on ESPN2.
The weekend games with the exception of the regular season are typically selected a week or two weeks out. ABC gets the first pick of games for all the major conferences, which, since 2024, has primarily been the top three games from the SEC, which the network took over broadcast rights from CBS.
ESPN/ESPN2 formerly aired coverage ofABC games in a "reverse mirror" format. Both networks will also air other selected midweek games and Sunday games, typically teams from more “minor” conferences (Sunday games are exceptionally rare because of conflicts withESPN Sunday Night Baseball and the network's professional football coverage, bothNFL andCanadian football).[36]
ESPN Radio airs a weekly game as well as selectedCollege Football Playoff bowl games including all bowl and national championship games.[36]
ESPNU usually airs 5 games per week.[36]
Before its closure in December 2021, ESPN Classic aired selected games throughout the year.[36]
ESPN's Saturdays during the regular season begin at 9:00 AM ET withCollege GameDay, a three-hour live show that previews the day's games. This counts down to the first set of games for the day, which begin at noon ET on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2. Another set of games will begin across those three networks around 3:30 PM, including an SEC game on ABC. At the conclusion of the second game,Saturday Night Football on ABC games are presented each Saturday evening starting at 7:30 p.m. during the college football regular season, which has been the case since 2017.College Football Saturday Primetime starts around 7:00, as does another game on ESPN2. Late-night games begin on ESPN and ESPN2 around 10:30 ET, inprime time on the west coast.
Modelo Kickoff Week is the first weekend of the college football season. Games include theAflac Kickoff Game,Duke's Mayo Classic, and other non-conference action.[37] One game will air on ABC on Sunday night, and a second game will air on ESPN on Labor Day night. After the first week of the college football season, theNFL season begins, and so these windows are filled withNBC'sSunday Night Football and ESPN'sMonday Night Football, respectively.
During the season, ESPN will designate one of its games as theDr. Pepper Championship Drive Game of the Week. Typically featuring matchups of ranked opponents or compelling games (onference or non-conference), these are typically featured for games on ABC or ESPN.
Dr. Pepper Championship Week always features theMAC Championship Game andSun Belt Conference Football Championship Game on ESPN, while theACC Championship Game,SEC Championship Game,Big 12 Championship Game, andAmerican Conference Football Championship Game are shown on ABC. Previously it has featured the WAC Championship Game, the C-USA Championship Game, and the Pac-12 Championship game every other year from 2013 to 2017 on ESPN, and from 2019 to 2023 on ABC.
The ESPN family of networks air the Division I FCS conference playoffs as well as the Division II and III championship games.
ESPN and ABC air the bulk of the bowl games, branded as ‘‘Capital One Bowl Mania’’[38] (formerly "Capital One Bowl Week", which contrary to its name extended to well over two calendar weeks because of the huge number of bowls, many created byESPN's own event division, the networks air).[39]
Through the network's online arms andESPN+, the ESPN networks cover the breadth of almost all levels of college football.
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ESPN airsCollege GameDay. Since 1993 and almost exclusively in recent years, it has aired from the top game of the week or one of significance. For the 2010 season, the show was expanded to three hours, with the first hour airing on ESPNU.
Since 1990, ESPN has aired the show live from the Boardwalk inOrlando, Florida. The show airs several awards.[40]
Since 1994, ESPN has aired the Heisman Trophy fromNew York City. It is typically an hour-long program featuring interviews with past winners and nominees (with their families or coaches).[40]
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