The eyes of the sports world will be focused on Disney World next Saturday, as Florida and Miami square off in “Week 0” from Mickey’s backyard in Orlando. With the rest of Division 1 football starting over Memorial Day weekend, ESPN has the whole day to themselves, and they intend to capitalize.
The all Sunshine State showdown between the longtime rivals will be the first to wear the ESPN CFB150 Showcase Game of the Week label, a brand the worldwide leader will stick with throughout college football’s 150th season. College GameDay will be live from Magic Kingdom Park – which should be interesting as the crew will only have one FBS game outside of Florida vs Miami to preview.
This year marks the 26th season for the 11 time Sports Emmy Award-winning program, and the first time it’ll broadcast from Disney World. That makes the Magic Kingdom the 85th location in GameDay’s history.
There is something though that will make the first College GameDay of 2019 different from any other. Due to Disney policy, fans will not be allowed to bring in signs or flags for the broadcast. That means it will be Mickey Mouse that brings the incredible streak of Washington State fans bringing their team’s flag to College GameDay to an end.
The 3 hour program will likely stock up with plenty of features (including Lee Corso cruising around Disney World) and big picture discussions over a number of college football story lines. A couple hours after GameDay wraps up, ESPN will broadcast the Guardian Credit Union FCS Kickoff between Samford and Youngstown State leading into the Florida-Miami showdown at 7 pm ET.
Die hard Florida fans will have the option of clicking over to the SEC Network to check out SEC Nation Presented by Dr Pepper from 5 to 7 pm ET to preview the game with Laura Rutledge steering and Tim Tebow, Marcus Spears and Paul Finebaum providing analysis. The combined 5 hours of pregame coverage between ESPN and the SEC Network ultimately kicks off a season that will feature more than 1,000 football games on the family of networks.
As if there wasn’t enough coverage of the Week 0 matchup – the ACC Network, which launched two days prior, will offer up their All ACC Watch Party: Miami vs. Florida, where former Hurricanes Mark Richt and Jon Beason will have insight into the game from Bristol. Former All-American Miami linebacker Jonathan Vilma will contribute from the game in Orlando.
