• by David Kaplan , September 1, 2004

It looks to be the "American Idol" for college football: ABC Sports and ESPN are joining forces with Cingular Wireless to allow viewers to text message their picks for the All-America Team, Player of the Week, and Player of the Year for the 2004 college football season.

This is the first time fans will have the opportunity to choose the winners for those titles, noted Ed Erhardt, president of ESPN/ABC Sports Customer Marketing and Sales. Fans will determine the Cingular Wireless/ABC Sports All-America Player of the Week and Player of the Year by text messaging their picks of college football players. Voting is open to subscribers of most wireless cell phone carriers - so far, only T-Mobile is not participating. Voters can also vote online on ESPN's Web site.

"This agreement is a great example of how ESPN and ABC Sports Sales tailors a marketing program to suit our customer's needs, as well as engage sports fans whenever and wherever they consume sports," said Erhardt during a conference call Wednesday morning when announcing the new promotion.

"Cingular, ABC Sports, and ESPN share a vision of using wireless text-messaging to allow sports fans to become a part of the action, and to actually help determine the outcome of the All-America Player each week," added Daryl Evans, vice president of advertising and marketing communications for Cingular Wireless. Each week ABC College football announcers, led by studio host John Saunders, will determine four candidates for the All-America Player of the Week. The prospective players and teams will be selected based on their performance that week on ESPN following the last college game each Saturday. The final selections will be sent to registered fans via cell phone text messages or email. Fans can then vote all day Sunday, with the weekly player being announced Sunday night on "SportsCenter."

The selection process will culminate on December 11 at 2 p.m. EST, in a one-hour special on ABC Sports entitled "Cingular ABC Sports All-America Team," in which the Cingular Player of the Year and Coach of the Year (selected by fans), and the All-America team (selected by ABC Sports and the Football Writers Association of America) will be announced.

Back for its 39th consecutive year televising college football, ABC Sports opens its coverage with three straight action-packed days starting on Saturday, September 4.