ESPN College Football 150 Furthers Original Content Push: Launches Weekly Programming Themes; Premieres The American Game and The Greatest Docuseries

• First Weekly Theme: ‘The Culture’
  • The American Game Presented by Cintas Examines College Football’s Uniquely American Traditions 
  • The Greatest Presented by Xfinity Delves Deep into Mascot Mania
• Blue-Ribbon Panel Reveals 150 Greatest College Football Teams

• Eight-Part Saturdays in the South: A History of SEC Football Presented by Regions Bank and My Story  Vignettes Continue

• ESPN CFB150 Showcase Game: Pitt at No. 13 Penn State in Schools’ 100th Meeting

ESPN College Football 150  continues its original content rollout this week, with the first of 11 weekly themes. Beginning with “The Culture,” the network debuts two season-long, weekly series, The American Game Presented by Cintas and The Greatest Presented by Xfinity, while continuing Saturdays in the South: A History of SEC Football Presented by Regions Bank and the daily My Story testimonial vignettes. The rollout will include the unveiling of the sport’s 150 greatest teams on ESPN.com, the dropping of new Down & Distance podcast episodes, and conclude with the airing of the fourth ESPN CFB150 Showcase Game: Pittsburgh at No. 13 Penn State, the 100th edition of the in-state rivalry.

Weekly Themes to Serve as Umbrella for Content
ESPN CFB150 weekly themes will serve as a guiding principal for multi-platform content each week, providing fans a layered, in-depth look at specific topics which have defined college football over the last 150 years. ESPN CFB150’s first theme is “The Culture,” focusing on the elements that make college football uniquely American.

The American Game Presented by Cintas and The Greatest Presented by Xfinity Debut; Air Tuesdays and Thursdays Each Week
Two core elements of each theme week will be the docuseries, The American Game Presented by Cintas and The Greatest Presented by Xfinity, airing on ESPN Tuesdays and Thursday, respectively. The hour-long, The American Game explores the stories that have made college football an integral component of the sports landscape, while the 30-minute The Greatest tackles a singular subject each week, providing a revealing look at the memories, breakthroughs and personalities who have defined college football, punctuated by a Top 11 on each particular subject.

• In its debut episode, The American Game examines the phenomenon that has become “College Football Saturday.” With the game embodying a singular blend of pride, loyalty and tradition, you have to understand how much everything around it matters too – from the team colors to the uniforms to the bands, mascots, nicknames and more.
• The Greatest’s first episode examines an unlikely piece of serious business – mascots. ESPN’s panel of 11 discusses the live animals, the cartoon creations and everything in between, in a fun breakdown of one of the sport’s most entertaining traditions.

Watch the Trailers:

An October and November theme schedule will be released soon.

Blue-Ribbon Panel of 150 Decides 150 Greatest Teams
ESPN College Football 150 will unveil the sport’s 150 greatest teams Tuesday, Sept 10 on ESPN.com. The voting was conducted by a Blue-Ribbon Panel comprised of a variety of 150 influential figures and minds from across college football, including current and former writers, broadcasters, administrators, sports information directors and ESPN personalities.  The panel also voted on the sport’s 150 greatest players, coaches and games – with those lists set to be announced later this season.  Concluding their duties, the panel will decide The All-Time, All-American Team, which will honored in January.

Saturdays in the South: A History of SEC Football Presented by Regions Bank Eight-Part Film Continues
Saturdays in South: A History of SEC Football continues on Tuesday, Sept. 10, on SEC Network with the second episode of the eight-part series. The documentary film event continues each Tuesday evening at 9 p.m.through October 22.

This week, the film examines the period from 1933 through 1959, the early years of the SEC as many young men in the South get the opportunity to become first-generation college students, and play football during the Great Depression and World War II. Numerous players and coaches fight in the war, including Brigadier General Robert Neyland, who leads the most dominant program of the era, the Tennessee Volunteers. Multiple SEC schools claim national titles through the 1950s, including LSU with star running back Billy Cannon in 1958, prior to Cannon’s epic game-winning punt return against powerhouse Ole Miss a year later.

Additional Highlights:

• SportsCenter airs an ESPN CFB150-themed Top 10 each week, which will be Presented by Xfinity
• My Story continues daily across multiple platforms
• Down & Distance: Podcast hosted by ESPN senior writer Ivan Maisel examines the history of the sport through specific stories that have contributed to and reflected American culture. The episode Sooner Sabotage is available today, the eighth podcast available in the series. A new episode will be available on Sept. 12
• ESPN CFB150 Showcase Game: Pitt at No. 13 Penn State – Saturday, Sept. 14, at noon on ABC

ESPN College Football 150 Reaches 19 Million Fans in One Day Alone
ESPN College Football 150 programming was consumed by 19 million fans on Saturday, Aug. 24, as the network’s storytelling initiative ramped up with 12 hours of content during a signature start to the sport’s 150th anniversary season. Concluding the day, Football is US: The College Game (10:52 p.m. – 12:21 a.m.) — the ESPN CFB150 documentary – reached nearly six million fans on its own.

Programming Schedule for Premieres of The American Game Presented by Cintas

*Airs on ESPN2

Programming Schedule for Premieres of The Greatest Presented by Xfinity

Please note: On Tuesday Oct. 1 and Thursday, Oct. 3, the two shows will air previously seen episodes 

About The American Game Presented by Cintas  and The Greatest The Greatest Presented by Xfinity
The American Game and The Greatest are both being produced by Herzog & Company, the Emmy Award-winning production company which has produced critically acclaimed original programming for network, cable and digital outlets including the Emmy-nominated Decades series for CNN (The Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, Nineties and 2000s) and The History of Comedy.   In addition to College Football 150 for ESPN, recent doc-series produced under the Herzog banner include The Movies, a 12-hour documentary series for CNN produced in partnership with Gary Goetzman and Tom Hanks (Playtone), Cola Wars, a 2-hour documentary exploring the historic rivalry between Coke and Pepsi for History Channel, and the true crime documentary special Dirty John: The Dirty Truth for Oxygen which is based on the explosive L.A. Times podcast and newspaper articles. Mark Herzog also served as an Executive Producer on the 8-hour scripted series Dirty John for Bravo.

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Media contact: Derek Volner at 860-384-9986; [email protected] and @DerekVolner