ESPN Will Start Its Super Bowl Rollout As Soon As This One Ends

ESPN will get its first Super Bowl next year, a landmark event for the sports media giant, and the formal ramp-up toward the game will begin moments after Super Bowl LX ends. 

The network has developed “The Handoff,” a 24-hour programming event that will begin at 11:30 p.m. ET on Feb. 8, shortly after the end of Super Bowl LX on NBC that evening, and will continue for the next day across ESPN and ABC, its sister Disney-owned outlet.

Among the specific coverage plans surrounding “The Handoff”:

• A postgame edition of NFL PrimeTime from Levi’s Stadium, site of this year’s Super Bowl, will feature network icon Chris Berman. He will ceremonially hand off coverage to Scott Van Pelt and a post–Super Bowl LX edition of SportsCenter that will air from SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, site of next year’s Super Bowl LXI. 
• A recap of Super Bowl LX, Super Bowl Live, which airs after SportsCenter and be hosted by Laura Rutledge, and will also air from SoFi Stadium.
• Several daytime ESPN shows—including First Take with Stephen A. Smith, multiple editions of SportsCenter, NFL Live, and another episode of Super Bowl Live—will air from Main Street, U.S.A. at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif. That setting, of course, overtly leans in to the theme park holdings that are core to Disney’s overall business. At Disneyland, ESPN will “welcome and honor” a player from the Super Bowl–winning team, as has long been tradition.
• ABC’s Good Morning America will broadcast from Levi’s Stadium, the site of this year’s Super Bowl, on Feb. 9, and will have an interview with a player from the winning team during its show the following day.
• World News Tonight on Feb. 9 will also have Super Bowl–related content. 
• Similar callouts are expected during Jimmy Kimmel Live! that evening, with that show already based in Los Angeles. 

ESPN’s coverage of Super Bowl LXI, to be simulcast on ABC, was originally planned as part of a media-rights deal struck with the NFL in 2021. The networks are also contracted to air Super Bowl LXV in 2031, but the rights agreement between Disney and the league that currently runs through 2033 can be reopened after the 2029 season. 

The NFL could start talks with networks as soon as this year toward reopened rights agreements, particularly in the wake of a strong viewership year for the league with several milestones established.

Long before now, though, the upcoming Super Bowl LXI has been a major corporate focus for Disney and ESPN, and the network’s headquarters in Bristol, Conn., features a countdown clock to the event on Feb. 14, 2027. Monday Night Football announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are set to call the game. This past season on MNF, Buck and Aikman have already referenced the upcoming Super Bowl, with Aikman joking to Buck, “Will you be my date on Valentine’s Day?”

ESPN, not known for doing much in half-measures, said “The Handoff” is only a “prelude” to its full Super Bowl plans.