Cold Pizza

Cold Pizza
Directed by	Brian Hegner Rob Katko David Wexler
Starring	Jay Crawford Kit Hoover Thea Andrews Dana Jacobson Woody Paige Skip Bayless
Country of origin	United States
Production
Running time	2 hours
Original release
Network	ESPN2 (2003–07)
Release	October 20, 2003 (2003-10-20) – May 4, 2007 (2007-05-04)
Related
First Take
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Cold Pizza was an American television sports morning talk show that aired weekdays on ESPN2 from 2003 to 2007. The show's style was more akin to Good Morning America than SportsCenter's straight news and highlights format. It included daily sports news, interviews with sports journalists, athletes, and personalities, and an assortment of other sports and non-sports topics.

The original co-hosts were Jay Crawford and Kit Hoover, with Thea Andrews serving as correspondent, and Leslie Maxie as the news anchor. The ESPN executive in charge of the program was James Cohen, who helped develop ESPN's popular talk show, Pardon the Interruption. The show was part of ESPN Original Entertainment overseen by ESPN programming chief Mark Shapiro. The executive producer/creator was Brian Donlon and he was assisted by Consulting Producer Steve Friedman, who oversaw NBC's Today Show during some of its most innovative and highly rated periods.^[1]

When it launched on October 20, 2003, it started at 7 am ET, but moved to 8 am just short of its first anniversary in an attempt to get male viewers who may be awaking a little later.^[2] The show repeated at 10 am for the West Coast and often updated the show for the west coast feed.

Although Cold Pizza was simulcast on ESPN2HD, it was not produced or presented in high definition. On October 2, 2006, DirecTV became the presenting sponsor with the show titled as Cold Pizza presented by DirecTV.

In the fall of 2004, in an attempt to heighten the sports news content of the program, newspaper columnists Woody Paige and Skip Bayless were added in a series of segments called 1st & 10.^[3] Moderated by Crawford, the segment aired four times per show covering 10 topics (just like in football where teams have four downs to cover 10 yards for a first down). Paige and Bayless would debate, discuss and cajole each other on the sports headlines of the day. By December 2004, re-edited segments and new wraps were transformed into a new half-hour program using the same name which aired on ESPN at 3 pm ET.

In March 2005, change came in front of the camera and behind the scenes. Kit Hoover and Thea Andrews were replaced by SportsCenter anchor Dana Jacobson. At the same time, Brian Donlon left as executive producer of Cold Pizza and 1st & 10 and was replaced by SportsCenter veteran producer Mike McQuade. More change followed, on November 28, 2006, Paige left the program citing health and personal reasons, leaving New York to return to the Denver Post, where he had been a longtime writer. He was not the last Cold Pizza member to leave the New York City studio location. In May 2007, the entire program shifted production to ESPN's Bristol headquarters. The final edition of Cold Pizza aired on May 4, 2007. The following Monday, May 7, the show was replaced by a very similar program, ESPN First Take, which initially maintained many features of Cold Pizza, but instead produced in high definition at ESPN's headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut. First Take (by this time with ESPN dropped from the show name) would eventually return to New York City in 2018 at the newly reconstructed Pier 17 at South Street Seaport.