Cold Pizza

Cold Pizza is 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 SportsCenters 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. 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. 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.