Two new sponsors have signed up as sponsors of College GameDay, the football pregame show that has been presented by Home Depot for 20 years.

This season, DoorDash and Old Dominion Freight Line will join Home Depot and six other returning sponsors on the program. Those returning sponsors are Aflac, AT&T, Coors Light, GEICO, Goodyear and Pizza Hut.

“While Home Depot has been the presenting sponsor and synonymous with GameDay, we’re still able to provide great value for other sponsors as well,” Sean Hanrahan, senior VP, Disney Advertising Sports Brand Solutions, told Broadcasting+Cable.

Ratings were up during the first week of the season by 15%, with more than a million viewers tuning in. This weekend another big audience is expected as Alabama travels to Texas. Naturally, GameDay will be there in Austin for the big game as well.

Hanrahan said that advertiser interest in sports and college football is strong, and the three-hour GameDay telecasts are all sold out. “College football continues to be a place where a lot of brands want to be because of the passionate audience it delivers. We’re doing very well in GameDay,” he said.

According to iSpot.tv, College GameDay generated about $16.4 million in ad revenue in 2021. The top advertisers including The Home Depot, Nissan, Allstate, AT&T Wireless, Goodyear, Pizza Hut, Dr. Pepper, Coors Light, Wendy’s and Taco Bell.

The total was down from $30.2 million in 2019, which had one additional Saturday broadcast.

The first week of the 2022 season, College Game days generated $1.24 million in ad revenue, up from $1.16 million a year ago, according to iSpot.tv 

This season, Old Dominion will sponsor a row of bleacher seats during the telecast. Those seats are front and center, in sight of the talent on the set and the show’s demo field. “Outside of the game itself, those are probably the premier seats in college football,” Hanrahan said.

As part of a two-year deal, Old Dominion will also sponsor the show’s “Best in the Game" feature.

DoorDash, which also has a two-year sponsorship agreement, will be highlighting local traditions at each college town at which Gameday stops during the season. The brand will also work with Disney’s in-house creative agency, Disney CreativeWorks to develop a branded-content social program that shows College GameDay talent using DoorDash for their game day needs.

Disney and Home Depot started this season commemorating the 20-year anniversary of the sponsorship that created College GameDay Built by The Home Depot. Home Depot CEO Edward Decker talked about the relationship during the season opener, and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro also delivered a thank you message to the sponsor.

“There are not a lot of 20 year old sponsorships out there. It’s been a true, win-win collaborative effort,” Hanrahan said.

During the season ESPN will also be showing highlights from the 20-year sponsorship.

Aflac will continue to sponsor the Aflac Trivia Question during games and AT&T will bring fans the GameDay Checkdown, as well as the Countdown to the College Football Playoff National Championship campaign highlighting the best teams around the country. 

Coors Light is back as the sponsor of Saturday Selections. ESPN and Coors Light will curate an interactive viewing experience for fans with a QR code that enables them to pick winners. 

GEICO’s humorous You Had One Job segments, featuring the wackiest plays of the day also returns.

Goodyear will celebrate the teams, fans, and communities on the road with a Rod Test feature looking at teams facing big road games.

Pizza Hut will have a presence as the sponsor of College GameDay’s Saturday Super Dogs segment in which the hosts predict the week’s upsets.  ■ 

Rece Davis has signed a multiyear renewal deal with ESPN that includes the veteran assuming the full-time host's role for College GameDay.

The pact, financial terms of which were not disclosed, runs through 2021 and will see Davis take over the College GameDay helm from Chris Fowler.  Davis will continue to host ESPN’s College GameDay basketball road show.Although Davis will relinquish his role in the Thursday night ESPN College Football Primetime booth, he will still call select bowl games and retain his weekly play-by-play duties for college hoops.

Davis, who has been with ESPN since 1995, will increase his overall presence for the network’s College Football Playoff studio coverage again hosting the Tuesday night rankings show, the Sunday selection show and anchor coverage on-site at the College Football Playoff semifinals and national championship.  Also, he will continue to serve as lead host of the network’s men’s Final Four coverage.

“This agreement reflects our belief that Rece Davis is one of the very best in the industry," said ESPN executive  vice president of programming and production John Wildhack. "He’s established himself as a versatile and polished pro. Chris Fowler was instrumental in building College GameDay into an award-winning and iconic program that transcends sports with its excellence, relevance and influence on the public discourse. With Rece on board, we know College GameDay will remain the show of record for college football fans.”

Noted Davis: “I’m extremely pleased to continue to call ESPN my professional home. The past 20 years have been extraordinarily rewarding and this new chapter as the host of College GameDay is one I eagerly embrace. I’ve cared deeply about college football my entire life.  As a result, I’m humbled and grateful to join the brilliant men and women who have built GameDay into the sport’s defining show."

Davis added, “I congratulate Chris Fowler, a consummate professional, who has set a standard of excellence while hosting GameDay for 25 years.  I wish him continued success in his play-by-play role for Saturday Night Football and the College Football Playoff.   As the slogan says, “Get up.  It's GameDay.”  I can’t wait to do that.”

Fowler, who has hosted GameDay since 1990, will focus on his ABC Saturday Night Football duties, calling games with analyst Kirk Herbstreit and reporter Heather Cox throughout the fall including a College Football Playoff National Semifinal and the College Football Playoff National Championship. He will continue to host the Heisman Trophy presentation as well as call the world’s biggest tennis events including Wimbledon, French Open, Australian Open and ESPN’s expanded coverage of the US Open beginning this summer.

“I am truly proud and gratified to have hosted College GameDay for the past 25 years, from the humble early days in the studio to its present place on the sports TV landscape," said Fowler. "Traveling the country with Lee, Kirk, Desmond, and the whole GameDay family as we shared Saturday mornings with passionate football fans has been professionally and personally rewarding... and unforgettable fun.

"In choosing to shift my focus to play-by-play for Saturday Night Football, the College Football Playoff, and the biggest tennis events year-round, it was important to me that GameDay be left in excellent hands," Fowler continued. "It certainly will be with someone as talented and dedicated as Rece Davis. I know viewers will welcome him and I am excited to watch GameDay's continuing evolution.”

NFL quarterback legend Brett Favre was a no-show for ESPN’s College GameDay in Tallahassee , Fla.

Host Chris Fowler said Favre was unable to make the trip to Florida State, where the Seminoles will host Notre Dame on ABC tonight at 8 p.m. (ET) in a battle of unbeatens, due to a mechanical problem with his flight.

That left Ken Griffey as the sole guest picker, and while he lacked the freewheeling style of Katy Perry on Oct. 4 at The Grove in Oxford, Miss., the future MLB Hall of Famer was more sympatico with GameDay doyen, Lee Corso.

For the record, Griffey matched Corso’s selections on seven of nine games, including two that favored geography. Most notably, The Kid, an Orlando resident, played it Sunshine State smart, picking Florida over Missouri and the Seminoles over the Fighting Irish.

On Saturday Corso, noting that his first live rroad show selection (pictured) for ESPN dated to FSU-ND undefeated matchup on Nov. 13, 1993, donned a wig redolent of the black Seminole hairdress and a red baseball cap, signifying his belief in Jumbo Fisher and his beleaguered quarterback, 2013 Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston.

Corso, a FSU football and baseball player and pigskin coach back in the day, didn't mention that he missed with his Seminole nod as the Irish prevailed 31-24, in South Bend that day.

Griffey, who was in Tallahassee because his son Trey's Arizona Wildcats are on bye week, recused himself from making a call on the game involving Zona's Pac-12 compatriots and rivals, Stanford and Arizona State, saying he wished there was a way that they played long enough, so both “could lose.”

Neither has the current appeal or perkiness of Katy Perry, but ESPN has reached out to a pair of sports legends as its guest pickers for College GameDay.

Lee Corso, Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard and crew are encamped in Tallahassee, where they will be joined by NFL ironman QB Brett Favre and The Kid, MLB icon Ken Griffey, Jr.

The duo will be asked to weigh in on their picks in the battle of unbeatens: No. 2 Florida State and No. 5 Notre Dame. ABC will televise the action on Oct. 18 at 8 p.m.

Favre, who beat FSU as a member of Southern Mississippi in 1989 and created headlines for sexting former Seminoles student Jenn Sterger when both were New York Jets employees in 2008, and Griffey follow Jonathan Papelbon to the GameDay stage. Last week, the Mississippi State alum was resplendent in his Mississippi State red suit and bulldog in Starkville, a far cry from the lack of decorum he displayed late in the 2014 MLB season.

As ESPN raised the parlor game concerning whom will become the latest addition to GameDay’s guest picker roster, it will be hard-pressed to find the combination of pretty, sass and fun Perry displayed at The Grove on Oct. 4. Among other Perry pearls, her message to fans of the LSU Tigers: let them eat corndogs.