"Reality king ready for another round with 'The Contender'"Volume 8, Issue 23 by James Hays Jr.

'The Contender' which debut its first season this past spring on NBC generated lots of money and plenty of ratings because it was watched by 10+ million people jsut in the United States alone, and plenty more throughout the world. For some reason after its first season of airing, NBC cancelled 'The Contender' for some unknown reason. Just recently, ESPN in additon with Dreamworks Television picked up the show and will start airing the second season this upcoming spring in 2006.
In my opinion, i think this is a great pick-up for ESPN because, I know myself, plenty of my friends and acquantances watched the show every week. Like Mark Burnett(Producer of the series), exclaims its a, "Rocky-esque kind of way--of telling the story." He means the show tells the story of the underdog and lots of people jumped on that and became fans and will remain fans. They will remain and more will join, because in America, we love and always will root for the underdog.