About the Show

The College Bowl Company is proud to unveil the newest version of its iconic, Emmy and Peabody Award winning game, College Bowl, as the Capital One College Bowl.

Capital One College Bowl airs on NBC every Tuesday at 10 PM. College Bowl has been part of campus life for generations, and now NBC is set to reignite some of the nation's greatest school rivalries in the ultimate intercollegiate battle of brains. Hosted by Peyton Manning, with his brother Cooper Manning serving as sidekick, the series challenges college students outside the classroom and puts their knowledge to the test as they compete for academic scholarships.

Richard Reid, President of the College Bowl Company which owns the program, has created and developed all the modern iterations of College Bowl that appear around the world. The original version of College Bowl was created by his father, Don Reid. To develop Capital One College Bowl, Richard teamed with Universal Television Alternative Studio, a division of Universal Studio Group, Village Roadshow Television, Tough Lamb Media and its president, Mark Itkin.

There are 10 games in this inaugural Capital One College Bowl tournament. Each episode is 1 hour. In the first three episodes, four schools appear – two in each half. Each team is made up of 3 varsity scholars plus an alternate. In each of these first three shows, the two high scoring teams automatically advance to the single-elimination tournament – six schools in all. The other two schools in each show become wild cards. The two highest scoring wild cards from the first three games advance along with the six winners into the eight school, single-elimination tournament that begins in show 4. Starting in show 4, each episode features just two schools in a full hour of head-to-head competition. The winners stay in…the losers go home.

Every competitor in Capital One College Bowl wins scholarship money to put towards their education. The two final teams go head-to-head for $125,000 for each player to put towards their education.

In addition, there is a newly created Capital One Merit Award that will be given to four students who, through their character, leadership and involvement in extracurricular activities have made a unique impact on their community.

In all, Capital One is awarding $1,000,000 in scholarships to participating varsity scholars. The winning school also takes home the new Capital One College Bowl championship trophy, which will be prominently displayed on campus.

Through its participating sponsors, the College Bowl Company has raised tens of millions of dollars of scholarships and institutional grants for schools playing College Bowl and its other programs around the world. Other College Bowl games include Honda Campus All-Star Challenge, the official academic championship for America’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and University Challenge, now in its seventh decade in the UK and airing in prime time on BBC 2. Until recently, College Bowl also produced Africa Challenge, an international championship featuring schools from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

Since 1998, Peyton Manning has personally endowed 45 scholarships to the University of Tennessee, helping to support deserving students at his alma mater. His PeyBack Foundation has established 10 scholarships across eight different Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

Cooper, the oldest of the three Manning brothers, has earned national recognition for his humor and wit as host of "The Manning Hour" on "FOX NFL Sunday." 

Capital One has made a commitment of $1 million in combined grants for the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and The United Negro College Fund to support HBCUs and create pathways to greater opportunity for the graduates of these vital institutions. In addition, through the Capital One Cup, which recognizes excellence in collegiate athletics, Capital One has donated more than $4 million to student-athlete scholarship funds, half of which have gone to support women's athletics programs.

The participating schools in this inaugural Capital One College Bowl tournament are University of Alabama, Auburn University, Columbia University, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Ole Miss, Morehouse College, University of Tennessee, University of Southern California, UCLA, University of Virginia and Xavier of Louisiana.

"Capital One College Bowl" is executive produced by Peyton Manning, Cooper Manning, Eli Manning, Richard Reid and Mark Itkin. David Friedman serves as showrunner for the series.