'The X Factor': Simon Cowell Produced, Will Star in Three-Minute World Premiere Clip to Air During All-Star Game (Exclusive)

5:44 PM PDT 7/6/2011 by Lesley Goldberg

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Fox Sports also considered a national half-hour lead-in showcase ahead of the game.

Ian Derry/Fox

Simon Cowell

Fox Sports originally had two plans to integrate Simon Cowell’s upcoming singing competition series The X Factor during next week’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game, including a half-hour national preview and a three-minute movie trailer promo.

“We wanted to create a national lead-in to the All-Star Game,” Fox Sports president Eric Shanks tells The Hollywood Reporter. However, since production is still under way on the fall series, Fox will broadcast a three-minute world premiere promo that was produced by Cowell and filmed over two days in Miami and Los Angeles.

“[Fox Networks Group entertainment chairman] Peter Rice and [Fox marketing president] Joe Early took the idea to Simon who immediately jumped on it and came up with the concept for the completely original world premiere,” Shanks says.

Shanks stressed that the preview is unlike anything viewers have seen before and isn’t just clips from the auditions. “It's big and bold and is very much Simon being Simon and showing off the fruits of his labor,” he noted.

Shanks was mum on just when during Tuesday’s All-Star Game -- which airs July 12 at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET -- the X Factor clip will bow, only joking that it would air “when the sun goes down” in Phoenix, where the game is being held.

While there will be on-air promotion alerting viewers that they haven’t missed the world premiere, Shanks noted that “X Factor is not going to take over the All-Star Game,” and that talent from the series, which premieres over two nights on Sept. 21 and 22, won’t be in Phoenix.

In addition to penning the three-minute clip, Cowell also for the first time will take over Fox’s X Factor Twitter account and tweeting from that during the game.

“It’s a great platform to launch The X Factor, but it’s also good to get people who are interested in American Idol to come in and watch baseball,” Shanks added.

Email: Lesley.Goldberg@thr.com; Twitter: @Snoodit