Hitting the court! The CW’s All American is getting a spinoff — but it won’t be about football.
Titled All American: Homecoming, the new series follows tennis star Simone Hicks (Geffri Maya) as she pursues her athletic career at a historically Black college. She’s joined by Damon Sims (Peyton Alex Smith), a talented baseball player who’s also navigating “the highs, lows and sexiness of unsupervised early adulthood,” according to the show’s logline.
The character of Simone made her debut during season 2 of All American as a young woman who dated Jordan (Michael Evans Behling). After having a baby and giving it up for adoption, she decided to go to college and give her tennis dreams another shot.
In July 2021, the CW aired a backdoor pilot for Homecoming as part of All American’s regular season. During the episode, Simone visited the fictional Bringston University in Atlanta and realized she wanted to apply. Damon, meanwhile, decided he didn’t want to enter the MLB draft and would instead to commit to playing baseball for Bringston.
After the CW picked up Homecoming for a full series order in May 2021, Warner Bros. TV chairman Channing Dungey said that the new series would be “even more exciting” than the original. “Geffri Maya, who plays Simone, is fantastic, definitely holding the center of a love triangle-to-be in this new series,” she told Deadline at the time. “And it is also fun — the world of the HBCUs has not been seen on American television this way.”
Showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll, who also supervises the original All American, has said that one of the things she’s most excited to explore in the new show is the world of HBCUs, or historically Black colleges and universities.
“This is my way of hoping I can introduce the HBCU experience and widen the horizon for our youth as a whole,” she told Entertainment Weekly in July 2021. “I’m completely surrounded by people who went to HBCUs, and [they have this] sense of finding themselves and finding a place where they felt permission to be whatever version of Black they were and really explore what that means.”
Though Bringston is fictional, Carroll was inspired by real schools including Clark Atlanta University, Maya’s alma mater. “These kids, especially kids that look like me, deserve to be inspired, celebrated and motivated,” the Snowfall star told EW. “And to be part of something so monumental matters to me.”
Keep scrolling for more details about All American: Homecoming before it premieres:
Homecoming will follow Simone's story after her time on All American, but the series will also introduce new characters, including Damon and Simone's aunt Amara (Kelly Jenrette), who teaches journalism at Bringston. Like its sister show, Homecoming will focus a lot on its characters' athletic careers, but the college setting means that romances could get steamier (All American's characters are in high school). "With Nkechi Carroll taking us into college, it’s giving us the opportunity to be a little older," Dungey told Deadline in May 2021. "A little racier, a little more daring.” Erik Voake/The CW
In addition to Maya, Smith and Jenrette, the new series will feature Cory Hardrict as Marcus Turner, one of the school's baseball coaches, and Netta Walker as Keisha McCalla, a current student at Bringston. The cast also includes Sylvester Powell and Camille Hyde. Bill Inoshita/The CW
Carroll, who wrote and executive produced the pilot episode that aired during All American, will return as Homecoming's showrunner. Earl Gibson III/Shutterstock
The CW hasn't announced an official release date yet, but the show is expected to debut in 2022 as part of the network's midseason lineup. Bill Inoshita/The CW
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