November 13, 1976 (1976-11-13) – December 10, 1988 (1988-12-10)
Release
June 29 (2017-06-29) – September 7, 2017 (2017-09-07)
Battle of the Network Stars is a series of competitions in which television stars fromABC,CBS andNBC would compete in various sporting events. A total of 19 of these competitions were held between 1976 and 1988, all of which were aired by ABC.
In 2003, NBC attempted to reviveBattle of the Network Stars with a two-hour special.
In 2005,Bravo premiered a revived version of the show namedBattle of the Network Reality Stars. Also in 2005,ESPN premiered a sports-themed spinoff version ofBattle of the Network Stars asBattle of the Gridiron Stars featuring twenty players from the AFC and NFC competing in a variety of tasks that had nothing to do with football.
In 2017, ABC revived the series as a summer series, which ran from June 29 to September 7, 2017.
The first Battle was broadcast on ABC starting in November 1976. The program proved popular and continued for an additional eight and a half years, with subsequent episodes airing approximately every six months until May 1985. One final competition aired in December 1988. NBC tried to revive the competition in August 2003 with Tony Potts as host, but with an intra-network contest consisting of personalities from the NBC family of networks. Typically, episodes were aired twice per calendar year, once during the spring and once during the fall duringNielsen Ratings sweeps weeks.
Sports broadcasterHoward Cosell hosted or co-hosted all but one of the first nineteen competitions (he did not host the 1985 edition due to a falling-out with ABC, but he returned for the final edition in 1988), and commented on the action with a semi-serious version of the style for which he was famous.
When ABC revived the program as a weekly series in 2017,Mike Greenberg andJoe Tessitore took over the hosting duties. Furthermore, each episode began with a remake of the opening sequence of ABC'sWide World of Sports.
Each network was represented by eight or ten of its stars from various series, and one of those people from each team would be elected to serve as the network's team captain.
Some of the events were modeled after those used onThe Superstars, another Trans World-ABC production that featured athletes from all sports competing against each other for an overall title. Regular events included swimming, kayaking, volleyball, golf, tennis, bowling (on custom-made outdoor lanes), cycling, 3-on-3 football, the baseball dunk, running, and the obstacle course. Also featured as a regular event was a game of "Simon Says", directed by Catskill hotelGrossinger's entertainer Lou Goldstein.[1] Each network received points based on how it performed in the event.
After the regular events were over, the lowest scoring network was eliminated from further competition and the two remaining networks determined the day's winner with the final event, theTug of War.
Two teams of five celebrities compete each week with a professional athlete as their coach (The coaches return throughout the season). The teams are typically assigned based on the genre or role of the celebrities' notable TV credits. For example, one episode pitted prime-time soap opera stars against actors associated with comedies, while another had had actors who played lawyers vs. those who played White House employees. Teams often include at least one veteran actor or actress who previously competed in the originalBattle of the Network Stars and archive footage of their previous appearance(s) is shown. The venue remainsPepperdine University, as was the original.
For this edition, rather than the standard network vs. network format, fielding of the teams is based on the TV characters attributed to each celebrity—cops vs. TV sitcoms, White House vs. lawyers, TV moms & dads vs. TV kids, etc.[2]
