A day after ESPN’s College GameDay made its first appearance at Ole Miss for the Rebels’ game against Alabama, Lee Fitting, the program’s executive coordinating producer, proclaimed the show “its best ever.”
Fitting doesn’t expect that “best ever” title to last very long.
The GameDay crew has set up shop in The Junction for Saturday’s Mississippi State-Auburn game and, as it was with last week’s game at Ole Miss, it the first time ESPN’s wildly-popular pregame show has been on the MSU campus. The trip to Starkville is the 62nd campus the program has set up shop in since it first began to take the show on the road in 1993. The program airs from 8-11 a.m.
“Whenever we go to a school for the first time, it’s really special,” said Fitting, who has been with GameDay since 2000 and its executive producer since 2012. “Last week in Oxford, it was off the chart. I expect that it will be off the chart at Mississippi State this week, too. I predict it will be just as good, if not better, than last week.”
Before you read too much into Fitting’s prediction, you should know that “being the best every week,” is sort of built into the program’s DNA.
“All of us on the show, we keep each other honest and try not to get stuck in our ways,” Fitting said. “We want to be better than we were last week. We want to be the best show out there, not just the best show on ESPN or the best sports show. We want to be the best show, period.”
Saturday’s game will feature second-ranked Auburn against third-ranked Mississippi State in a battle of unbeatens. It is clearly the marquee game of the day. Even so, the arrival of GameDay and hosts Chris Fowler, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard and David Pollack gives the game an even higher profile.
What once was a simple pregame show broadcast from the ESPN studios in Connecticut has become a sensation since hitting the road in 1993 with a single remote broadcast (Florida State at Notre Dame).
Fitting, 39, who has spent 14 of his 16 years at ESPN working with the show, is still somewhat amazed by its appeal. Each Saturday, anywhere from 1.5 million to 2 million viewers will tune in for the broadcast.
“It’s been crazy,” Fitting said. “To see what the sport has grown into over the past 10 to 12 years and to see the kind of success we’ve had with the show, no one could have imagined that back when we started this.”
The show has made stars of its cast, most notably 79-year-old former coach Lee Corso, who has become an icon for his child-like enthusiasm. At the end of each show, when the panel and guest host have made their picks, the stage is given over to Corso to make his pick for the game where the broadcast is being held. He does this by donning the mascot head of the team he picks. Last week, Corso announced his choice by putting on an “Al the Elephant” head, signifying his prediction of an Alabama win over Ole Miss as Ole Miss fans assembled at the show booed his choice lustily. The Rebel fans got the last laugh, of course. Ole Miss defeated the Tide, 23-17.
Incidentally, the teams that have been first-time sites for GameDay have a won-loss record of 37-24 in those games.
Corso’s picks are hardly the only aspects of the broadcast that have developed an almost cult-like appeal. Even the fans who gather at the broadcast site have become something of a fixture, thanks to the signs they hold up in the background. It’s the same for the guest picker, something that started quite innocently years ago when former NBA star Charles Barkley asked to make an appearance on the show when it first visited Auburn, his alma mater.
Fitting said the signs and guest pickers demonstrate the show’s flexibility and innovation.
“We like to think we’re very perceptive in making sure none of the elements on the show are forced,” Fitting says. “But if something happens, we want to be attuned to it. Some of the things that are very popular in our show just sort of happened and we had the good sense to recognize it and capitalize on it.
“It’s like the signs. Over the years, we began to see more and more signs and some of them were just hilarious. We would be laughing in the (production) truck and the guys on the set would be laughing during commercial breaks. We thought, ‘why don’t we capitalize on this?’ Now, it’s something that people look forward to every week. I know we do. It has taken on a life of its own.”
Likewise, the guest picker has become a major theme of the show, too, and speculation about who will be selected each week is a major topic of conversation on the host campuses.
“I won’t say it happened by accident,” Fitting said. “But it is something that sort of took off. We found that bringing in someone, whether they are sports people or not sports people, added another element to the show. It’s fun. People love it.”
Last week, Katy Perry’s over-the-top appearance as guest picker created a buzz that lasted through the weekend and has fueled speculation among MSU people about who will be selected to do the honors Saturday.
Fitting was not inclined to tip his hand when he spoke with The Dispatch on Thursday.
“Some weeks, we know a week ahead who the guest will be,” Fitting said. “Sometimes, we won’t know until the Friday before the game.”
That appears to be the case this week.
“We have a couple of options we’re considering. We haven’t decided yet,” said Fitting, who declined to elaborate on the subject
As they say in the business, “stay tuned.”
About two million viewers will.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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