Amazon Prime Series Will Showcase 2017 Michigan Football Season
ANN ARBOR, Mich. – The University of Michigan, The Montag Group, Big Ten Network and Amazon have partnered on a behind-the-scenes documentary series about the 2017 Michigan football season that will be released on Amazon Prime in January 2018.
"We are proud to partner with Amazon Prime Video in documenting our University of Michigan student-athletes' daily experiences and the lifelong lessons learned both on the football field and in the classroom," said Michigan's J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Head Football Coach Jim Harbaugh. "We welcome judgement! We embrace this opportunity to showcase our 2017 University of Michigan football team to a vast audience around the world."
"We think documenting this season will reveal that our university and football program are unique environments that equip our student-athletes for success in both academics and athletics," said Warde Manuel, U-M's Donald R. Shepherd Director of Athletics. "We are excited to work with great partners and to break new ground as the first collegiate program to participate in this digital space."
The series will chronicle the happenings of the 2017 season with exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage from college football's winningest program. The cameras will follow Coach Jim Harbaugh, assistant coaches and players throughout the entire season, including access to practice, the university's academic environment and a look into their lives off the field and in the Ann Arbor community.
"This represents a tremendous opportunity for BTN's award-winning original programming team to partner with an entity like Amazon, as well as explore alternative distribution models for Big Ten content in the future," said Michael Calderon, Senior Vice President, Programming and Digital Media, BTN.
The show will take you inside Schembechler Hall, Glick Field House, the practice fields, Michigan Stadium and opposing venues as Michigan prepares each week. In addition, the eight-episode show will go into the academic setting/classroom with the Wolverines and into the local community as the team conducts various events.
"We pride ourselves on offering Prime members access to the people and worlds that they simply cannot find anywhere else. This series will show viewers an elite college football program in a way that's never been done before," said Conrad Riggs, Head of Unscripted, Amazon Originals. "We're excited to have this series join the Sports Emmy-winning All or Nothing on our unscripted football programming roster."
"We are excited to partner with BTN and work with Coach Harbaugh and the Michigan football team on this all-access view into one of the great college football programs in America," said Sandy Montag, Executive Producer.
Prime members will be able to stream the series exclusively via the Amazon Prime Video app for TVs, connected devices including Fire TV, mobile devices and online. Members can also download the series to mobile devices for offline viewing at no additional cost to their membership. The series will be a global release and available on PrimeVideo.com for Prime Video members in more than 200 countries and territories.
Customers who are not already Prime members can sign up for a free trial at www.amazon.com/prime. For a full list of all Amazon Video compatible devices, visit www.amazon.com/howtostream.
The Montag Group is a talent management, consulting, content development, and media-strategy company focused in the world of sports, entertainment and lifestyle. Sandy Montag, President & CEO, served as Executive Producer on "Perfect in '76," a documentary on the undefeated Indiana basketball team which aired on Showtime earlier this year. The Montag Group has partnered with Jim Jorden Productions on this project. Jim Jorden is formerly of NFL Films and is a 16-time Emmy Award-winning cinematographer.
Prime members will be able to stream the series exclusively via the Amazon Prime Video app for TVs, connected devices including Fire TV, mobile devices and online. Members can also download the series to mobile devices for offline viewing at no additional cost to their membership. The series will be a global release and available on PrimeVideo.com for Prime Video members in more than 200 countries and territories.
Customers who are not already Prime members can sign up for a free trial at www.amazon.com/prime. For a list of all Amazon Video compatible devices, visit www.amazon.com/howtostream.
This marks BTN's first foray into co-producing content for a third-party as the network expands its productions capabilities. As part of the partnership, both Amazon and BTN will commit promotional resources to the project.
BTN Originals is best known for its Emmy-nominated show "The Journey," as well as documentaries including "Unbeaten: The Life of Brook Berringer" and "Tiebreaker."
