Producer Bill Bonnell and director Jimmy Platt set to lead ESPN’s new marquee college football package
In a college football season where power conferences bulk up, it doesn’t get bigger than the growth of the Southeastern Conference.
Bill Bonnell (left) and Jimmy Platt will serve as the producer and director of the top game each week on the SEC on ABC. (Photo: Phil Ellsworth / ESPN Images)
Long a television juggernaut, the SEC has enjoyed one of the more treasured sports television windows [the SEC on CBS at 3:30 p.m. ET] for the past two-plus decades. Now, with a new set of rights kicking in just in time for the arrival of the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma, there’s naturally a load of anticipation around the conference’s new exclusive partnership with ESPN and the debut of football’s latest crown jewel television brand, the SEC on ABC.
While the ESPN family will be tasked with producing hundreds of live football games this fall – including a weekly game in 4K and the expanded College Football Playoff set to debut this December – the SEC on ABC is the network’s new glamour brand with its own dedicated graphics package and music reserved for SEC games on broadcast television in that coveted 3:30 p.m time slot.
SEC home games broadcast on ABC will have their own exclusive graphics package.
SEC on ABC broadcasts will primarily be in the 3:30pm ET time slot. However, any SEC home games appearing on ABC will retain the SEC on ABC branding.
“There are so many different things that we’re looking at this year that have us really excited for the season, probably more so than I’ve been in quite a long time,” says Jarrett Baker, Senior Manager, Remote Production Operations at ESPN, who is a graduate of the University of Florida. “I grew up in the SEC so to have that the top game each week; the highest profile game on our network, it’s going to be incredible.”
On Thursday, ESPN shared the new theme music that will score SEC on ABC broadcasts. It’s a re-orchestration of a throwback that will sound familiar to college football fans of the late 1990s and early 2000s and will be used exclusively on any SEC home game that airs on ABC. That could mean the 3:30 window or an SEC home games in primetime during ABC Saturday Night Football and in the ABC noon ET window. The theme was done by composer Bob Christianson, who also created the popular NHL on ESPN theme.
“Music is a crucial element in shaping the storytelling of any broadcast,” ESPN president of content Burke Magnus said in an official release. “The opportunity to resurrect a theme song that means so much to college football fans, and so many of us at ESPN, was important as we start this new chapter in our relationship with the SEC.”
Behind the scenes, the introduction of the SEC on ABC causes a bit of a reshuffling of ESPN’s top college football crews. The top team, led by producer Bill Bonnell and director Jimmy Platt, will work the top SEC game each week, that typically being the 3:30 slot. The B and C crews will likely also be on SEC games for ABC either in primetime or at noon.
The SEC on ABC debuts on Saturday with a doubleheader: Miami at Florida (3:30 p.m. ET) and Notre Dame at Texas A&M (7:30 p.m.).
