ABC to Develop Female-Led Basketball Drama Produced by Michael Seitzman, Christina Davis

By Joe Otterson

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Michael Seitzman and Christina Davis are set to produce a basketball drama series currently in development at ABC, Variety has learned.

Titled “Trailblazer,” the series follows Jordan Cruz, the gifted men’s basketball coach at a small D3 college in South Dakota. She rises to fame when she’s recruited by UCLA to become the first female coach of a Division 1 men’s team. While she quickly wins over the school’s female President and shares an undeniable spark with the scout who discovered her, Jordan faces more enemies than friends as she disrupts the old boys’ clubhouse of big-time college hoops.

Seitzman and Davis will executive produce via their Maniac Productions banner, which is currently under an overall deal with Studios. Joe Webb is the writer and executive producer on the project. Webb most recently worked on “Quantico” at ABC, on which Seitzman was the showrunner for the show’s final season. Seitzman previously created the CBS series “Code Black,” on which he also served as showrunner. Last year, Seitzman and Davis–herself the former head of CBS drama development–partnered to launch Maniac Productions.

Seitzman and Maniac are repped by WME. Webb is repped by WME and Primary Wave Entertainment.

This is the second female-led college basketball drama to be put into development this season. Previously, Variety reported that LeBron James and Elizabeth Banks had teamed to produce “Hoops” at NBC . That series would follow a former WNBA star and player who is recruited to lead the men’s basketball team at her alma mater.