Saturday Night Football - Overview

Overview

While ABC and ESPN have aired college football games on Saturday nights for decades, this program marks the first time that a collegiate sporting program has officially been part of any major over-the-air network's primetime schedule.

Twelve weeks of games were televised during the 2006, 2007, 2009, and 2010 college football seasons during the three-month periods, with the Dr Pepper Big 12 Championship Game closing out the seasons each year. With the college football season longer by a week, thirteen weeks of games were televised for the 2008, closing with the 2008 Big 12 Championship Game on December 6, 2008. The 2011 season had 12 weeks of games.

Besides Pac-12 and Big Ten games, ABC makes most of its selections or its options 12 days prior to the game (with some made six days beforehand). This allows ABC to 'flex' the most compelling game it has the rights to broadcast into the Saturday Night Football slot. Thus the Saturday night game is usually ABC's game of the week.

Saturday Night Football uses a variation of ABC's decades-old college football theme music (this variation originated from ABC broadcasts of bowl games starting in 1998, and was updated in 2010 along with the rest of ESPN and ABC's college football music), while all other college football broadcasts on ABC and ESPN use the ESPN college football theme music. ESPN also uses ABC's college football theme music for its BCS game coverage.