Country of origin United States Original network ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU Genre Sports Networks ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU | Running time 3 hours First episode date 27 August 2005 Language English | |
Original release August 27, 2005 (2005-08-27) – present Similar WNBA on ESPN, CFL on TSN, Arena Football League o, NASCAR on ESPN, ESPN College Basketball | ||
High School Showcase, known under its corporate sponsored name as the GEICO High School Showcase, is a presentation of high school football and high school basketball on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU. Since debuting in 2005, it primarily airs on Friday at 8pm ET on ESPNU, following ESPNU Recruiting Insider, but will occasionally air at various times and days on ESPN and ESPN2. The Friday Night Showcase game is called by Jason Benetti and ESPN Recruiting Coordinator Craig Haubert. Various commentators call other games throughout the week, although Mike Hall and Tom Luginbill anchor the halftime report and in-game updates. The series was previously Old Spice Red Zone High School Showcase; the series also has previously had Honda as a presenting sponsor.
Old Spice High School Showcase debuted in 2005 as a way to fill programming on the then-nascent ESPNU channel, which had debuted in March 2005. The series aired only four games in 2005, but after much success ESPN expanded its schedule to a full thirteen game season. Part of what lead ESPN to expanding its schedule is, in 2005, ESPN aired the highest rated high school football game in television history. Nease High School (Florida) vs. Hoover High School (Alabama) garnered a 1.0 rating and attracted nearly one million households.
Despite the expansion, the airing of high school football games on Thanksgiving weekend, a particularly important day in high school football in many parts of the country and one where high school football used to air on ESPN in the past, has been eliminated; ESPN no longer airs any high school football due to the founding of the Old Spice Classic and 76 Classic, college basketball tournaments that were founded in 2006 and 2007 and make up the bulk of the ESPN networks' schedules that weekend. (The last Thanksgiving High School Showcase game, Easton, PA vs. Phillipsburg, NJ, aired on Thanksgiving 2006.)
Old Spice High School Showcase started to air high school basketball games in 2006, as well.
Games in the High School Showcase are also broadcast on ESPN3.