On Thursday, Roque announced a new look at top female athletes, including a relative newcomer to the field.
Omaha Productions is best known for the programming it produces for ESPN, particularly the so-called Manning Cast, which features Omaha coach Peyton Manning and his brother Eli, but the company is also expanding into areas related to women’s sports.
“We’re really encouraged by the appetite for shows about female athletes. There’s real interest here,” Colin Campbell, director of development for Omaha Productions, said in a recent interview.
New series “Gamechangers: America’s Top 25 Female Athletes is executive produced by Sue Bird, Alex Morgan and Peyton Manning, and features Olympic medalists Adam Rippon and Alicia Montaño, comedians Fortune Feimster and Jared Fried, WNBA announcer Ryan Ruocco, FOX Sports soccer analyst Stu Holden, sports media personalities Katie Feeney and Katie Nolan, broadcasters Cali Champion and Hannah Storm, and more. Bird and Morgan also appear in the special, using lighthearted banter and commentary to help viewers understand the athletes’ impact and accomplishments.
Eve Wolfe, producer of Omaha’s current series, said in an interview that Omaha has an opportunity to expand into new production regions. “Gamechangers” shows the company using humor in new ways, featuring comedians and others in a format reminiscent of VH-1 retrospectives like “Best Week Ever” and “I Love The 90s.” “We wanted to create something really lighthearted and celebratory. We want people to watch the show and enjoy the conversation,” Wolf says. “I think any reasonable person is going to disagree with some of the rankings, disagree with some of the players on the list and say, ‘Why didn’t they include so-and-so?'” But what’s more important to us is getting people talking about the athletes. ”
Omaha, co-founded by Peyton Manning and longtime sports media executive Jamie Horowitz and backed by private equity investors Silver Lake and former Endeavor executive Patrick Whitesell, has expanded in recent years. In 2026, she released four different projects related to women’s sports, including weekly Game of the Week coverage of League One volleyball for Versant Media’s US cable network. This will be the company’s first foray into live, season-long sports coverage.
“The great thing about women’s sports is that there are so many stories that are yet to be told,” Campbell says. “There’s a lot of opportunity to dig deeper into different individuals, and I think that’s where we’re going to spend our time.”
Earlier this year, Omaha participated in “The Final Third,” a three-part series between Angel City FC, Washington Spirit and Kansas City Current, as each team raced through their season in the NWSL. The one-hour live special, “Celebration Pat Summit,” spotlights the accomplishments of the legendary eight-time national championship-winning Tennessee women’s basketball head coach and has secured an unconventional sponsor from pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly.
Omaha’s increased interest in women’s sports projects reflects the broader focus on leagues such as the NWSL and WNBA. This summer, ESPN will replace the venerable “Sunday Night Baseball” with “Women’s Sports Sundays.” It will be a showcase for women’s soccer and basketball, and will also require the hiring of new talent and the creation of a new type of shoulder studio programming.
Campbell, the Omaha executive, believes the addition of Caitlin Clark to the Indiana Fever roster in 2024 has given new impetus to increased interest in women’s sports. The company said it recognized that “there is clearly an audience here.” “We doubled down because our distributors asked for it.”
