Tuned In: ESPN’s Super Bowl Goal

May 13, 2026

Disney has wasted no time promoting what will be ESPN’s first Super Bowl in 2027. That included at this week’s upfronts in New York, where the company set lofty expectations for its debut broadcast of the Big Game.

—Michael McCarthy

First Up

First at FOS: The annual NFL Honors awards show is expected to move to Netflix in 2027. Read the story.
Tom Brady stole the show as a corporate ambassador for Fox during its upfront presentation. Read the story.
After leaving The Athletic following a coverage reassignment, Twins reporter Aaron Gleeman launched an independent site, which received nearly 1,000 subscribers in its first few hours. Read the story.
As streamers face scrutiny in Washington, D.C., Fox has added two more NFL games to its schedule for the 2026 season. Read the story.

EVENT

Want to experience Tuned In live in person? Join us for our annual Tuned In event on Oct. 13, 2026, presented by Elevate, where we’ll dissect the biggest sports media topics. Industry leaders will discuss everything from the future of media rights and streaming to women’s sports, sports betting, and more. Last year’s speakers included Adam Silver, Rob Manfred, Jimmy Pitaro, Greg Olsen, Maria Taylor, and Stephen A. Smith, among others.

Learn more and get your ticket here.

ESPN Wants Its First Super Bowl to Be the Most-Watched Ever

Phil Ellsworth-ESPN Images

NEW YORK — During Disney’s upfront presentation Tuesday, ESPN set an ambitious goal for itself. NFL Live host Laura Rutledge declared ESPN wants to set the record for most-watched Super Bowl of all time when it broadcasts the 61st edition of the Big Game on Feb. 14, 2027.

That won’t be easy. Fox Sports’s broadcast of the Eagles’ 40–22 win over the Chiefs in February 2025 holds the current record with an eye-popping 127.71 million average viewers.

But setting a viewership record during its first Super Bowl production would be sweet revenge for ESPN. For years, the sports media giant and parent company Disney seethed on the sidelines while rivals Fox, CBS Sports, and NBC Sports split hundreds of millions in ad revenues from the most-watched TV broadcast of the year.

That finally changed in 2021, when ESPN forged a new 10-year deal with the NFL that allowed it to join the Super Bowl rotation after the 2026 and 2030 NFL seasons.

Realizing the importance of ESPN’s maiden Super Bowl, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell appeared onstage with Joe Buck of Monday Night Football at Disney’s upfront. It was the only live appearance Goodell made among NFL media partners during this year’s upfront season.

With Disney’s support, ESPN is throwing everything but the kitchen sink into its Super Bowl preparation. Here are five ways ESPN is trying to transform its internal goal of producing the most-watched Super Bowl ever into a reality:

Primetime Talent

There won’t be any rookies fumbling in the broadcast booth for ESPN. Thanks to chairman Jimmy Pitaro’s recruitment of Buck and Troy Aikman away from Fox in 2022, ESPN will offer viewers one of the most experienced Big Game broadcast teams.

Between them, Buck and Aikman called six Super Bowls for Fox. They’ll be flanked by veteran sideline reporters Rutledge and Lisa Salters. Aikman, the best current NFL game analyst in the business, has been making the rounds, appearing at the upfront, interviewing with Mike Greenberg on Get Up and costarring with Buck, Greenberg, and Rutledge in a commercial that humorously riffs off the network being the “61st pick” for the Super Bowl.

As a visual reinforcement of its commitment, ESPN trotted out previous Super Bowl MVPs onstage here at the Javits Center, including Aikman, Eli Manning, Steve Young, Emmitt Smith, Desmond Howard, Jerry Rice, Hines Ward, Kurt Warner, and Nick Foles.

Increased Distribution

The cable TV giant will simulcast the Super Bowl on its sister Disney broadcast network, ABC, to reach the maximum number of eyeballs. Meanwhile, Peyton and Eli Manning appeared onstage to tout their first Super Bowl ManningCast on ESPN2.

As with English-language rights holders, the NFL requires the Big Game to be shown on broadcast TV for Spanish-speaking audiences. Thanks to a new deal with TelevisaUnivision, Spanish-language versions of the game will be telecast on both Univision and ESPN Deportes.

Alt-Casts

If ESPN has its way, it will deliver more alt-casts of the Super Bowl than ever before. Besides the ManningCast on ESPN2, it is working on approvals for The Pat McAfee Show to offer its own Field Pass version of the Big Game, as it does with the College Football Playoff. That probably won’t be hard since the league actually allowed McAfee and Kirk Herbstreit to broadcast from its Park Avenue headquarters Tuesday. You can watch Goodell crash McAfee’s show here.

Look for Disney to also produce an animated KidsCast, possibly driven by IP from the Star Wars or Cars universes.

“The Year of the Super Bowl”

ESPN is going all out in advertising and promoting its coverage of Super Bowl LXI from SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. With a countdown clock ticking down the minutes until Feb. 14 on the Bristol campus, viewers should expect a yearlong blitz of TV commercials, promotions, and corporate tie-ins during ESPN’s so-called “Year of the Super Bowl.”

A week before the Big Game, the media giant will set up shop next to the famed Santa Monica Pier. Featuring multiple beachside sets, ESPN Beach will be the home of its many studio shows, such as Stephen A. Smith’s First Take and Rutledge’s NFL Live.

Luck of the Schedule

Thanks to a quirk of the calendar, ESPN will broadcast the Super Bowl right before Presidents’ Day on Monday, Feb. 15. That means most U.S. adults will be off from work the day after. So they can party hearty late into Sunday night. There’s no guarantee this will increase viewership. But fans have been clamoring for a day off after the Super Bowl for decades.

The scheduling quirk will effectively create a three-day holiday, combining the Super Bowl, Valentine’s Day, and Presidents’ Day. Even better from ESPN’s standpoint, they’ll get to produce their coverage in Disney’s backyard of Los Angeles.

Around the Dial

The Savannah Bananas played the Texas Tailgaters at Great American Ballpark on Friday June 13, 2025. The game included music, dancing, non-baseball games, backflips and featured Reds players like Todd Frazier, Bronson Arroyo and Sean Casey. The Bananas will play the Texas Tailgaters again on Saturday to a packed Great American Ballpark.

The Enquirer

Disney is expanding its relationship with the Savannah Bananas. Beginning this fall, Disney+ will be the home of the Banana Ball League’s season championship, the Banana Bowl.
Oscar winner Michael B. Jordan made a surprise appearance at Amazon Prime Video’s upfront Monday night to announce he’s executive-producing a series on Muhammad Ali called The Greatest.
TKO announced a seven-event agreement with Arizona to bring UFC, WWE, Professional Bull Riders, and Zuffa Boxing dates to the state. The first event announced is the 2027 PBR World Finals in Glendale next May.
ESPN announced the hire of former CBS Sports host Keiana Martin as a SportsCenter anchor.
Notre Dame and USC are in negotiations to revive their football rivalry, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Draymond Green did a U-turn on his criticism of Charles Barkley. “Disrespect wasn’t my intent,” he said on his podcast.
Just asking: With the NFL announcing a record slate of nine international games, how long before they sell a separate international media-rights package?

Loud and Clear

White Sox pitcher and Indianola Independent Advocate reporter Duncan Davitt types on his computer while covering a Norwalk girls basketball game on Nov. 24, 2025, at Norwalk High School.

Reuters

“You have to have your businesses planned as if search is zero.”

—Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch, speaking on the tech podcast TBPN, with some sober words about the direction that search engine traffic has been headed in the past decade.