On average each fall Sunday morning, 2.24 million people tune in to the live presentation of ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown.
For three hours beginning at 10 a.m. ET, award-winning and Hall of Fame broadcaster Chris Berman and co-host Suzy Kolber take viewers through a weekly dose of NFL news, previews, analysis, personality features, hard-hitting opinion and predictions by former NFL stars – Cris Carter, Mike Ditka, Merril Hoge, Tom Jackson, Keyshawn Johnson and Bill Parcells.
Rounding out the on-air team, NFL insider information gurus Chris Mortensen and Adam Schefter scour the league for up-to-the-minute news and updates, and generally, five correspondents – Josina Anderson, Bob Holtzman, Rachel Nichols, Sal Paolantonio and Ed Werder – report from key games each Sunday.
Since its debut in 1985 as NFL GameDay, the show has expanded from a one-hour program to what has become a comprehensive three-hour show.
Sunday NFL Countdown has won 10 Sports Emmys, ranking it among the top three studio programs on ESPN.
Leading up to the 2012 NFL Divisional Playoff Sunday last week, ESPN Front Row went behind the scenes to capture “the making of Sunday NFL Countdown” through the prism of its co-coordinating producers Amina Hussein and Greg Jewell.
Presented as a two-part series shot and edited by multimedia producer Dave Williams, this traces the weeklong process of creating a three-hour program, beginning Monday with content planning and features meetings, through Saturday’s meeting with the analysts, Sunday’s pre-show demo rehearsals and more.
Part I features access to key meetings from early part of the week beginning with the content planning meeting and the features meeting on Monday, through Thursday’s PA (production assistants) meetings, and an inside look at a PA working on a feature.
Return to ESPN Front Row for Part II.
