It began as a segment which ran every in 20 minute intervals during Cold Pizza, a two-hour program broadcast on the American cable television network ESPN2, each weekday morning.
Woody Paige, another columnist, was a founding co-host, but left the show before the move to Connecticut to return to his writing duties at the Denver Post.
Guest hosts, in place of either Jacobson or Crawford, have included Josh Elliott, Tom Rinaldi, Michael Kim, Michelle Bonner, Sage Steele and Bayless himself.
Crawford joined ESPN as co-host of Cold Pizza in 2003 having previously served as director of sports programming at WFTS-TV in Tampa, Florida.
In August 2011, ESPN rolled out a 1st and 10 podcast, featuring all of the debate topics condensed into a downloadable audio file.
The show was similar in format to ESPN's other afternoon sports talk programs Jim Rome Is Burning, Around the Horn, and Pardon the Interruption.