ESPN has officially launched its high-profile daily sports talk show, Big Day with Peter Schrager, bringing a fresh visual identity and a distinct urban energy to the network’s daily programming lineup. To capture the essence of the new series, the creative team at hometown studio BIGSTAR was tapped to develop a comprehensive design and open that merges the textures, icons, and unmistakable attitude of New York City with premier sports broadcasting.
The show is designed to showcase host Peter Schrager in his natural element—discussing sports with the casual, direct, and irreverent tone one might expect from a conversation with a close friend. Rather than adopting a polished, hyper-theatrical, or overly formal broadcast posture, Schrager brings a genuine, infectious enthusiasm for whatever topics are currently driving the sports conversation. With the debut of Big Day with Peter Schrager, ESPN has provided that familiar, highly engaging voice with a national platform, and BIGSTAR’s visual branding was built from the ground up to reflect that exact personality.
According to the creative team at BIGSTAR, the core objective of the branding brief was to create an extension of Peter Schrager himself. The production required a visual identity that felt relatable, honest, and grounded, avoiding unnecessary flash while maintaining a confident and energetic pace that never crosses into chaos. Above all, the design needed to honor Schrager’s deep Brooklyn roots, serving as a visual homage to the neighborhoods that shaped his perspective on sports and culture.
In the initial stages of the project, BIGSTAR’s design exploration yielded five distinct directions, each drawing inspiration from a different facet of New York City life and culture. The creative team investigated various urban textures, architectural elements, and cultural touchstones before ESPN ultimately selected a concept rooted in a quintessential New York neighborhood staple: the local bodega window.
This winning direction captures the unique visual juxtaposition found in a classic city bodega, where items as varied as a team pennant, a bag of pretzels, and a scratcher ticket share a single shelf and somehow make complete sense together. By translating this eclectic, familiar aesthetic into motion design, the studio created an open that immediately grounds the viewer in a specific place and culture.
The resulting show open is constructed as a dynamic grid of everyday objects instantly recognizable to any sports fan, seamlessly integrated alongside gritty Brooklyn street textures, iconic New York imagery, 3D sports icons, and prominent ESPN branding. Remarkably, this entire visual territory is established within a brisk and impactful five-second sequence. The project’s timeline was notably swift, with two rigorous rounds of design exploration and a fully realized, finished style guide coming together in under a month.
Through this collaboration, BIGSTAR has successfully delivered a package that anchors ESPN’s newest daily talk show in an authentic sense of place, setting the tone for a program built on genuine sports discourse and local flavor.
