Netflix has announced the docuseries America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. The show follows the 2023-2024 Cowboys cheerleaders squad, from auditions and training camp, and all through the season. There are seven 45-minute episodes and they debut in the summer. 

The series teases “unfiltered access” to the cheerleaders, who “open their doors to document the personal stories behind the uniforms — revealing the drive, hustle and drama among the cheerleaders and coaches. For many, it’s a dream to make the team — but that’s only just the beginning.”

“The kind of access and creative freedom we need to make the kind of work we want to make is not easy to come by — especially when dealing with a brand as large as the Dallas Cowboys,” director and executive producer Greg Whiteley said. “To their infinite credit, the Cowboys offered unfettered access for the year we filmed the DCC and left us alone. The result is an authentic portrait of one of the most storied and beloved institutions we have in American pop culture.”

One Potato Productions and Boardwalk Pictures produce the series in association with Campfire Studios. One Potato produces Netflix’s Last Chance U as well, along with Wrestlers and Cheer on that same platform. 

Whiteley and Adam Leibowitz of One Potato Productions executive produce with Andrew Fried and Dane Lillegard of Boardwalk Pictures, and Ross M. Dinerstein and Rebecca Evans of Campfire Studios. 

“We’re thrilled to see the results of a season spent with Greg Whiteley and a remarkable crew following every step of the way. The storytelling through this open access will captivate viewers episode after episode and Netflix’s global stage is the perfect platform to showcase it,” said Charlotte Jones, Dallas Cowboys executive VP/chief brand officer and Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders president. “We went into this understanding that the opportunity to transparently share the journey of our season, and the emotions, challenges and joy experienced along the way, is exactly what our fans and viewers would want. It’s also part of the reason that, for decades, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders have earned their place as being ‘often imitated, but never equaled.’ ”

Jones is the daughter of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. 

CMT previously ran the unscripted show Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making The Team. 

The Detroit Lions will kickoff the upcoming season of HBO’s Emmy Award-winning Hard Knocks sports documentary series, which debuts Aug. 9.

HBO Sports and NFL Films will again partner to develop the five-episode series, which will follow the Lions through pre-season training camp. Narrated by Liev Schreiber, the series will feature Lions head coach Dan Campbell as he enters his second season with a team that offers a mix of young emerging stars, established veterans, free agent additions and highly regarded rookie hopefuls, said the network. 

The upcoming 17th edition of Hard Knocks follows last year’s profile of the Dallas Cowboys. 

“As Hard Knocks enters its third decade inside NFL training camps, we are both thrilled and thankful for the opportunity to feature a historic franchise like the Lions,” said NFL Films Vice President and Senior Coordinating Producer, Ken Rodgers said in a statement.. “The city, the culture and the coaching staff in Detroit all have an exciting energy that will make the show must-watch television this summer.” ■ 

HBO for the first time will take a behind-the-scenes look at a National Football League team during the season when it debuts Hard Knocks In Season: The Indianapolis Colts on Nov. 17, the network said Thursday night. 

The Emmy-winning series, which traditionally follows one NFL team during the pre-season, will now follow the Colts as they navigate the challenges of an NFL season as they play for a post-season birth, said the network. The weekly HBO/NFL Films-produced series will debut each Wednesday through the end of the season. 

In August Hard Knocks profiled the Dallas Cowboys as they prepared for the 2021 NFL season. The in-season edition of Hard Knocks will be the first appearance for the Colts on the series.

“We could not be more thrilled to bring Hard Knocks and the remarkable behind-the-scenes access it provides for the entirety of an NFL season,” NFL Films Senior Executive Ross Ketover said in a statement. “Thanks to HBO, along with the incredible cooperation from the Colts, we are able to deliver a groundbreaking new edition of the series.”

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Super Bowl champs the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play the Dallas Cowboys to start the NFL season Sept. 9. NBC has the game. Coverage kicks off at 7 p.m. ET under the Sunday Night Football banner, and the game begins at 8:20 ET. 

The game happens at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. 

NFL games continue Sunday, Sept. 12. Sunday Night Football has the Los Angeles Rams versus the Chicago Bears that night. 

The Buccaneers, who were 11-5 last season, faced the 14-2 Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl in February. The Bucs, led by quarterback Tom Brady, won 31-9. 

NBC has the Super Bowl later this season. 

The Dallas Cowboys will be featured in the 20th anniversary season of Hard Knocks from HBO Sports and NFL Films.

This will be the third time series will focus on the Cowboys, known as America’s Team and traditionally one of the NFL teams whose games draw the highest TV ratings.

The new season of Hard Knocks: The Dallas Cowboys will debut Aug. 10. New episodes will appear on Tuesday through Sept. 7.

"We are thrilled that Hard Knocks will be returning this summer and excited for our return to the NFC East and the Dallas Cowboys franchise," said Jonathan Crystal, VP, HBO Sports. "We are beyond grateful to the Cowboys for opening up their doors and allowing HBO and NFL Films to spend the summer with one of the sport's world's truly iconic franchises as they prepare for the upcoming season."

Each season Hard Knocks covers an NFL training camp, introducing viewers to veterans and rookies looking to make the team and the coaches executives who will make those decisions.

A 30-person NFL Films crew will be at the Cowboy’s facility in Oxnard, California, shooting more than 1.750 hours of footage. Each week the footage is turned around quickly to produce a  featuring recent and often news-making events.

"The Cowboys are one of the most storied franchises in NFL history and a team that elicits strong reactions from fans around the world," said Ken Rodgers, VP, senior coordinating producer at NFL Films. "Tens of millions of fans love them, but just as many people love to hate them. Either way, when the Cowboys show up people watch, which makes them perfect for Hard Knocks. This year, their high-profile status as "America's Team" is paired with uniquely interesting storylines. We can't thank Mr. Jones and Coach McCarthy enough for letting us tell the story behind what we hope is the beginning of an exciting year in Dallas."

Hard Knocks has won 18 Sports Emmy Awards. Last season featured the Los Angeles Chargers and Rams. 

Ten of the last 12 teams featured on Hard Knocks equaled or improved their won-loss record in the regular season.

Showtime’s Gervonta Davis-Leo Santa Cruz pay-per-view boxing match highlights a sports weekend dominated by college and pro football telecasts.

The Halloween fight between three-time world champion Davis and four-division world champion Santa Cruz will retail at a suggested price of $74.99 and will feature a three-card undercard, according to Showtime.  

Related: PPV Fights Change Dates, States to Accommodate the Return of Fans 

College football continues to ramp up with a full slate of games across numerous channels. Top-ranked Clemson on Saturday will host Boston College on ABC without star quarterback Trevor Lawrence, who earlier this week tested positive for COVID-19.  Other high profile games include a primetime matchup between third-ranked Ohio State and Penn State (ABC.)

The NFL's week seven slate of games takes place Sunday afternoon, culminated by NBC's Sunday Night Football telecast between two struggling teams, the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles. 

In other sports, NBC and NBCSN on Saturday continue their Premier League coverage, while FS2 offers a live Liga MX game on Saturday. Golf Channel has EPGA Tour and PGA tour golf coverage on Saturday and Sunday. 

ESPNNews and ESPN2 will cover the Korean Baseball League (KBO) post-season beginning Nov. 1, and culminating with the Korean Series later in the month. 

Ex- and future Dallas Cowboys tight end Jason Witten has un-retired, exiting the ESPN Monday Night Football booth where he had spent a year since retiring last May. It would be the 16th NFL season for the 11-time Pro Bowlers and future hall of famer.

“We thank Jason for his many contributions to Monday Night Football and to ESPN over the past year and wish him continued success," ESPN said. "We have seen many former coaches and players go into broadcasting before eventually returning to the game they love, so we understand Jason’s desire to return to the Dallas Cowboys. In the coming weeks we will determine our MNF plans for the 2019 season.”

[embed]https://twitter.com/dallascowboys/status/1101179275334610949[/embed]

Witten said the decision to exit -- he had not gotten stellar reviews in the booth -- was his alone.

“The fire inside of me to compete and play this game is just burning too strong,” Witten said in a statement on the Dallas Cowboys web site. “This team has a great group of rising young stars, and I want to help them make a run at a championship. This was completely my decision, and I am very comfortable with it. I’m looking forward to getting back in the dirt.”

Photo of Jason Witten in action during 2017 against the Washington team by Keith Allison, Wikimedia Commons.

ESPN’s 2017 Monday Night Football schedule will feature both Super Bowl teams and all 12 playoff teams from last year, the network announced Thursday.

The network’s 17-game primetime schedule will feature one appearance from the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots (Dec. 11 against Miami) and two appearances by the Atlanta Falcons (Nov. 20 against Seattle and Dec. 18 against Tampa Bay.)

In addition, all of last year’s playoff teams – New England, Seattle, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas Cowboys, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, Houston Texans, Kansas City Chiefs, New York Giants, Oakland Raiders and Pittsburgh Steelers – will make at least one Monday night appearance.

ESPN’s coverage will open on Sept. 11 with New Orleans Saints-Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Chargers-Denver Broncos doubleheader telecast, said the network.

The network will look to rebound from its disappointing 2016 campaign which generated a double-digit ratings decline from 2015.

ESPN’s regular season schedule is a follows: 

Los Vaqueros are coming to three Azteca América stations in the Lone Star State.

The National Football League's Dallas Cowboys have struck a deal with Azteca América that will make O&Os KDVF in San Antonio, KDAF in Austin and KYDF in Corpus Christi official Spanish-language partners of one of pro football's most-storied franchises. 

Under the two-year deal, announced late in July, the three stations will telecast live, Cowboys-produced preseason games announced by Victor Villalba and Luis Fernando Pérez. The 2016 broadcast schedule is comprised of Cowboys games versus the Miami Dolphins on Friday, August 19, at 7 p.m. (CT), the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday, August 25, at 9 p.m. (CT) and the Houston Texans on Thursday, Sep. 1 at 7 p.m. (CT). Pregame shows will precede the Cowboys' home games against Miami and Houston.

Once the regular season kicks off, the stations will air a monthly, Spanish-language edition of Cowboys Report.

Luis Hernandez, GM of KVDF, tells Multichannel News the games are fully produced by Cadena de Plata Radio, the Cowboys' Spanish-language radio and television network, with sales opportunities and promotional efforts left to the Azteca América stations.

“The team already has a dedicated effort to reaching the Hispanic market, as the Cowboys are a very beloved and respected club in the Hispanic community,” Hernandez said. “They are the most popular of the two NFL teams in Texas.”

A section of the Dallas Cowboys’ official website — Somos Cowboys, sponsored by Ford — is dedicated to Spanish-speaking fans. The regularly updated @somoscowboys Twitter feed is also available for Spanish speakers, as is the Somos Cowboys Facebook page.

Telemundo-owned KDVA in San Antonio aired the team's Spanish-language preseason games last season; Austin and Corpus Christi are new Spanish-language markets for the team. In addition to Dallas-Fort Worth, other Cowboys Spanish-language markets are Abilene, Bryan-College Station, El Paso, Lubbock, McAllen-Harlingen-Brownsville, and Waco.

While Hernandez could not speak of the reasons behind the Cowboys’s shift from Telemundo to Azteca América in San Antonio, he notes that the Cowboys were impressed by his stations’ “ability to be pretty nimble and to pre-empt network programming in order to run live team broadcasts.” He added that Azteca’s corporate executives saw the opportunity to gain viewers with the Cowboys and raised no objection to pre-empting network programming.

Sales efforts are a bit lagging, Hernandez admitted. “We’re a little behind the eight-ball, as most Fortune 500 brands completed their media planning in late June," he said. "We have four of five brands that have expressed interest, and they represent a combination of local, national and regional brands. Texas brands are a natural match, of course.”

Hernandez said he expects to reveal the sponsors by the second week of August, while continuing to work closely with local businesses to create customized programs.

“We are very excited to be aligned with Azteca América as the provider of our Spanish-language broadcasts for the Dallas Cowboys preseason games and Cowboys-related programming,” Cowboys executive vice president Jerry Jones Jr. said. “We have always been grateful for the loyal fans who have watched our Spanish-language broadcasts through the years, and that is especially true for the strong fan followings in San Antonio, Austin and Corpus Christi.”

Villalba’s first turn at calling Cowboys games in Spanish came in 1996, as a color commentator for the team’s radio broadcasts. A season later, he added the roles of producer and host of the team’s Spanish-language TV broadcasts to his resume. After a stint away from the team, he returned in 2002, with affiliate relations expanding to Mexico a year later. He’s been with the Cowboys ever since, and since 2005 also serves as the Spanish-language play-by-play announcer for the National Basketball Association’s Dallas Mavericks.

On-air partner Perez has been with the Cowboys since 2004. From June 2009 to November 2013, he also served as co-host for Zona ESPN on ESPN Deportes Radio AM 1540 in Dallas.

Since the 2012 NFL season, all of the league’s broadcasting partners have added Spanish-language coverage of some regular-season games, either through SAP on a Spanish-language network. Some games aired by NBC also air on NBC Universo; select Fox telecasts also air on Fox Deportes; and ESPN Deportes airs all of sister network ESPN's Monday Night Football games. ESPN Deportes also aired a Spanish-language telecast of Super Bowl 50 on Feb. 7, through a sublicensing deal with English-language rightsholder CBS.

New for the 2016-2017 season, the Denver Broncos have teamed up with Telemundo O&O KDEN in Denver for Tiempo Extra con Los Broncos, a 30-minute live highlights show beginning Sunday, Aug. 14, and running through Sunday, Jan. 1, 2017. It’s the first-ever team-focused broadcast on Spanish-language television in Denver.

Other teams that have forged pre-season Spanish-language coverage agreements in recent season include the Green Bay Packers, with WYTU in Milwaukee; and Miami Dolphins, with Azteca affiliate WWHB in West Palm Beach.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Bears in June inked a Hispanic marketing agreement with local shop PACO Collective, which has been working with baseball's Chicago White Sox since 2010.

“Professional football is the most popular sport in America, and yet, when it comes to Hispanic audiences we still have to invite this segment through culturally relevant content and conversations to evolve from fans to family,” Paco CEO Ozzie Godinez said in a statement. “We’re going to be helping the Chicago Bears make sure they gain the most Hispanic engagement in Chicagoland and across the U.S. by appealing to the sense of community that drives NFL fan support and game attendance.”

Some 8.7% of NFL game viewers are Hispanic, according to Nielsen. That’s up from 5.5% in 2004.

Research conducted for ESPN shows the NFL as the second-most popular sport among Latino television viewers, behind soccer. Among Latinos who prefer to consume media in English, however, the NFL is by far the leader.

In related Azteca América news, the network is mourning the loss of veteran executive Roel Medina, who died unexpectedly at his home July 30 in Katy, Texas at the age of 55. Medina had served as GM of Azteca’s KYAZ in Houston since 2012.

Prior to joining Azteca Houston, Medina spent 11 years at Telemundo, where he served as a station general manager in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, respectively. He earlier worked for Univision, where he was Director of Marketing and Creative at KXLN in Houston.

“Roel Medina was creative force and a hard working executive who was ‘one of a kind,’” Azteca América CEO Manuel Abud said. “Above all, he was a man of deep convictions and a big heart. He was deeply committed to the Texas communities his stations served.”

Azteca Station Group executive vice president Enrique Perez added: “Roel made enormous contributions to our station group and company. He was a brilliant, beloved leader, not only for Azteca, but also within the entire Texas television community, which knew him so well and for so long.”

Just in time for the NFL's opening weekend,  DirecTV and Salt Lake City NBC affiliate KSL-TV have reached an agreement in principle on a new retransmission consent agreement.

KSL, owned by Bonneville International, a unit of the Mormon Church, went dark to DirecTV customers on Aug. 21 after three extensions to a deal that officially expired on June 30.

The renewal comes just in time for NBC Sunday Night Football, pitting the Dallas Cowboys against the New York Giants at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

In a statement on its website on Sept. 12, KSL said a deal had been reached.

“KSL received communication from DirecTV Saturday that they have agreed to fairly compensate KSL for its valuable content” KSL vice president/general manager Tanya Vea said in a statement. “Thank you to our viewers for your patience. KSL is now back on DirecTV.”

The resurgence of America's Team -- until it ran into its rival with the controversial nickname -- helped ESPN register its highest-rated and most-watched Monday Night Football telecast since 2009 and 2010, respectively.

The worldwide leader's presentation of the Dallas Cowboys-Washington Redskins game averaged an 11.4 household rating, 13.3 million households and 18.8 million watchers, according to Nielsen data. Those were the franchise's top deliveries since the New Orleans Saints-New England Patriots matchup on Nov. 30, 2009 posted a 12.9 rating and the Saints-Atlanta Falcons game on Dec. 27, 2010 notched 19.1 million watchers. According to ESPN officials, Dallas-Washington on a live+same-day basis now stands as the seventh- and ninth-most watched telecasts in cable history from household and viewer perspectives (see charts below).

With the performance, MNF  was TV's top telecast of the night across cable and broadcast in viewers, households and all key male and adult demos, helping ESPN win the night among all networks in those same categories.

The Oct. 27 telecast peaked with a 13.6 rating and 22.5 million watchers during the 11:30 p.m. quarter, when the Colt McCoy-led Redskins put the finishing touches on their 20-17 blitz of an injured Tony Romo and the 'Boys.

In Washington, D.C., the game generated a 17.8 rating on ESPN and a 12.6 on WDCA-IND, for a combined 30.4 rating in the market. In Dallas, the game tackled a 14.0 rating on ESPN and a 22.6 on WFAA-ABC, for a combined 36.6 rating in the market.

Boosted by the big numbers from the thriller at AT&T Stadium, ESPN's MNF average through eight weeks and nine games rose 4% to an 8.6 rating from an 8.3 at the same stage of the 2013 campaign, and 10.05 million households, 5% more than the 9.59 million households last season. MNF's average audience improved 7% to 13.98 million watchers from 13.07 million.

For its part, Spanish-language service ESPN Deportes averaged a 0.7 Hispanic household rating with 100,000 impressions, and 128,000 Latino viewers, increases of 213% and 191% respectively, over the corresponding game last season.  'Skins-'Boys ranks as most-watched MNF game of the season and second most-watched NFL game ever on ESPN Deportes among Hispanic households, and fourth among viewers.

Season-to-date, MNF on ESPN Deportes has averaged a 0.4 Hispanic rating, up 100% percent, with 63,000 Hispanic household impressions and 92,000 Latino 2+ viewers, respective gains of 85% and 96%.

Digitally, Washington-Dallas was the most-watched MNF game ever on WatchESPN, with an average minute audience of nearly 145,000  -- 180% above week 8 last year. There were 421,000 unique viewers, marking 196% amelioration, and 30.6 million total live minutes viewed, a 203% surge.

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Top 10 Most-Viewed Programs in Cable Television History (Households):

Top 10 Most-Viewed Programs in Cable Television History (Viewers):

Source: ESPN and Nielsen data.