CW Football Saturday is a presentation of NCAA Division I FBS college football broadcast by The CW.
The CW began carrying college football broadcasts on September 9, 2023, with a package of Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) games sub-licensed from and produced by Raycom Sports (initially billed as the ACC on The CW), as well as coverage of the Arizona Bowl sub-licensed from Barstool Sports.
In 2024, CW Sports reached an agreement with the Pac-12âÂÂwhich, due to realignment, had been reduced to two teams for at least the 2024 and 2025 seasonsâÂÂto broadcast most Oregon State University and Washington State University home games during the 2024 season. The games are produced by the Pac-12's media department, which CW Sports also subcontracted to produce studio programming. CW Sports also acquired the rights to the Arizona Bowl outright.
For 2026, CW Sports renewed its rights to the Pac-12 (which would expand to include additional teams), and added rights to the Mountain West Conference.
After Nexstar Media Group acquired a majority stake in The CW, the company began efforts to broaden the network's demographic reach to encompass older viewers within the key demographic and linear television viewership, citing preferences towards streaming platforms by younger viewers. This would include an increased focus on imported programs from other countries, and sports programming. The network began to establish a sports division in 2023, initially with the acquisition of U.S. rights to the LIV Golf League.
Raycom Sports has had a long-standing relationship with the Atlantic Coast Conference, having syndicated ACC basketball games, and later football, since 1982. Raycom maintained the rights to this package after ESPN acquired the conference's media rights in 2010. The broadcast television package ended after the 2018âÂÂ19 season, when ESPN acquired its inventory for its new ACC Network cable channel.
As an aspect of this agreement, Raycom also held rights to syndicate a separate package of ACC telecasts to regional sports networks. In June 2023, Bally SportsâÂÂthe package's primary rightsholderâÂÂannounced that it would drop the ACC RSN package, amid the bankruptcy of parent company Diamond Sports Group. The following month, Raycom announced that it had sold the package to The CW, consisting of 13 football games, 28 men's basketball games, and 9 women's basketball games per-season. The CW aired its first ACC football broadcast on September 9, 2023, featuring Cincinnati at Pittsburgh.
On November 30, 2023, The CW reached an agreement with Barstool Sports to simulcast its coverage of the Arizona Bowl, which was previously exclusive to BarstoolâÂÂs social media platforms since 2021.
On March 26, 2024, it was reported by sports columnist John Canzano that CW Sports was nearing an agreement with the Pac-12 ConferenceâÂÂwhose membership had been reduced to Oregon State and Washington State as a result of realignmentâÂÂto televise the two teams' home games during the 2024 season. The deal was officially announced on May 14, under which The CW would air 11 broadcasts between the two teams (the remaining two were aired by Fox Sports).
As part of the expansion, The CW also rebranded its coverage as CW Football Saturday, adding a new pre-game show hosted by Mike Yam, and former Fox Sports personality Thom Brennaman as lead commentator for ACC games and selected Pac-12 games. The Pac-12 games, as well as the new studio show, are being produced by the Pac-12's in-house media department Pac-12 Enterprises (which consists of the remainder of Pac-12 Network's staff). Both CW Football Saturday and the Pac-12 football broadcasts would feature a number of former Pac-12 Network personalities, including Yam and commentators such as Ted Robinson. On May 29, 2024, with Barstool ending its title sponsorship and broadcast rights to the bowl after 2023, CW Sports acquired rights to the 2024 Arizona Bowl.
In April 2025, The CW announced a one-year renewal of its agreement with the Pac-12, with plans to air nine Oregon State and Washington State home games in the 2025 season (the remaining four will be split between CBS and ESPN). The 2025 season introduced a new pre-game show, CW Football Saturday Countdown, hosted by Yam, Michael Bumpus, and George Wrighster.
In August 2025, CW Sports announced a long term agreement with the Pac-12âÂÂwhich is expanding to nine teams, consisting primarily of ex-Mountain West Conference membersâÂÂto air 13 games per season from 2026 to 2030. In February 2026, The CW reached an agreement with the Mountain West Conference to air 13 games per season from 2026 to 2030.
With the limited turnaround time between the announcement and the start of the 2023 ACC football season, Raycom and The CW subcontracted resources from other broadcasters for its initial season of college football broadcasts, including ESPN (the conference's main rightsholder) temporarily allowing use of the ESPN College Football on-air graphics (pending the development of a dedicated CW Sports graphics package in time for basketball season), and its first game at Pitt sharing resources with Fox Sports (which was already at Acrisure Stadium for an NFL broadcast the following afternoon). Notably, the games are not available live on streaming-specific services like The CW app (replays of Pac 12 games are available on a next day on demand basis) but are available through streaming TV providers.
For the 2024 season, the production was rebranded as CW Football Saturday with a new on-air graphics package; Raycom continues to produce the ACC games under the new banner, while the Pac-12 portion of the package, as well as studio coverage, is produced from the new Pac-12 Studios in San Ramon, California (which had opened as a new facility for Pac-12 Network the previous season). Sister cable network NewsNation began to also be used as an overflow during doubleheaders.
The TCU Horned Frogs' Iron Skillet rivalry game against the SMU Mustangs was televised as part of the CW's ACC package in 2024; the team promoted the game via a video satirizing ESPN's "This is SportsCenter" commercials entitled "one treefroghill" (referencing former CW series One Tree Hill), seemingly dissing the network by saying that the game was "unfortunately" on The CW. When SMU beat TCU in the game (its first victory in the rivalry since 2021), the ACC's X account quipped "'Thank goodness it was only on The CW' âÂÂTCU fans, probably."