W+K and ESPN Give College Football Fans a Moment in the Spotlight

W+K New York isn’t the only agency that’s been focused on football recently — and for good reason.

Not only is the NFL about to start things up again, but this year’s college football season will be the first in history to discard the traditional Bowl Championship Series for a true four-team seeded playoff.

The first spot in W+K’s new campaign to promote client ESPN’s college coverage casts fandom as a universal experience…something everyone has “in common”:

A second :15 spot, which also debuts today, highlights some possible shakeups in the world of collegiate pigskin: will the new format allow an underdog to win the day?

Some backstory: a “team from ESPN” drove and flew across the country to capture the footage used in the first spot above by interviewing fans of every stripe; more of the same material will surface in later ads tailored to mirror the season’s unfolding narrative.

Also: in case you missed it, the “who’s in” campaign started with this one earlier in August:

As noted above, several more spots will follow in the campaign, which will run until college football crowns its new champion next January.

Digital, social, print and out of home materials to come.