ESPN will unveil a brand-new open to Monday Night Football and has enlisted director Peter Berg to help.
The new open will debut with the first Monday Night Football telecast of the season on Sept. 9.
It will begin with grainy pre-HD video and the voice of the series' first director, Chet Forte, cueing the "stand by and roll tape," followed by a welcome from original MNF commentator Howard Cosell. From there, NFL highlights appear chronologically, spanning the history of the series. The open will be slightly tweaked each week to reference the specific teams playing.
Berg enlisted Hollywood trailers house Ignition Creative to help. Ignition's Rebecca Ramsey (producer), Carsten Becker(editor) and Martin Kistler (creative director) oversaw graphic design with ESPN's VP of product enhancements Bob Toms and senior creative director Michael Szykowny, who also secured the many MNF archival elements and pop icon images that appear in the spot.
"Monday Night Football has undeniably been an integral part of American culture for 44 years," said ESPN executive producer Jed Drake. "This open beautifully captures many of the cultural touchstones that have run parallel to this great series, as we now head toward the half century mark. To this day, there's no bigger, more important sports property than MNF."
Berg has worked with ESPN before, directing the network's first documentary in its 30 for 30 series: Kings Ransom.
ESPN has been searching for a new open to Monday Night Football. Two years ago the network cut ties with Hank Williams Jr., -- who sang the theme song for 20 years -- after remarks he made about President Obama.
