Retired NFL super star now quarterbacking revival of College Bowl quiz show.
NBC revives a tried and true quiz show from the ‘60s with ‘College Bowl’
The kids are clearly the stars of “College Bowl” but the Manning brothers Peyton and Cooper certainly make a solid supporting cast.
Premiering Tuesday, June 22, on NBC, this revival of the classic quiz show that aired on CBS and NBC from 1959 to 1970 brings in 12 schools that are historical or regional rivals to compete head-to-head in a bracketed tournament over four rounds. Each team of three answers questions on a variety of subjects ranging from medicine and history to philosophy and science to score the most points. The top two teams that make it to the final will compete for $1 million in scholarship money.
Along the way, they’ll receive messages of encouragement from their school’s famous alumni. Two-time Super Bowl champ Peyton Manning is the host and his older brother Cooper is the sideline reporter. Both are also executive producers, along with younger brother Eli (also a two-time Super Bowl winner) and showrunner David Friedman, who thinks the Mannings’ playful chemistry will be a big draw for viewers.
“It was really important to them to enjoy the experience but also support the kids,” Friedman explains. “And it very much feels like a show that if you were to grow up in the Manning family or were a friend of them and you walked into their house on a Saturday night and they were playing like a game of Q&A, this is what it feels like. And I think that’s really the fun. It’s very infectious to watch them. They obviously have a great relationship; they get a kick out of each other.”
But “College Bowl” is most definitely about the students. Though there is only one champion, no one will walk away emptyhanded as kids from all 12 participating schools receive some amount of tuition money. That was especially important to Peyton Manning, who has personally endowed 45 scholarships to support students at his alma mater of the University of Tennessee, as well as the show’s sponsor, Capital One.
And the rivalries are familiar ones. Tuesday’s opener pits SEC adversaries Auburn against Alabama and Michigan versus Minnesota, both of the Big Ten. Future weeks’ matchups are Morehouse and Columbia, USC and UCLA, Virginia and Xavier, and
Peyton’s Tennessee versus Cooper’s alma mater of Mississippi. As teams advance in the tournament, they’re reseeded according to points totals and pitted against new opponents until two teams are left standing in the final.
And it’s all based on how many questions the players can answer correctly.
“We really wanted to have a full range of questions, so that it was viewer-friendly and you could play along at home from the couch and also it challenges the kids ...,” Friedman says. “You have to be a student and you have to have a wealth of knowledge and information to do well – and you had to work
together as a team.”