The 2027 Super Bowl will take place at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California — and also a galaxy far, far away.
Lucasfilm, ESPN, Disney and the NFL will present an animated, real(ish)-time alternate telecast of Super Bowl LXI set in the Star Wars universe. The altcast will stream in Disney+ and the ESPN app and air on Disney Channel and Disney XD alongside the main broadcast (on ABC, ESPN and Disney+) and several other alternate presentations.
Disney has done a few animated altcasts, which it calls “Funday Football,” in the past few years. Prior telecasts have featured characters from Toy Story, The Simpsons and Monsters Inc. Those all took place alongside regular-season NFL games, however — not the biggest single broadcast in any given year.
The Star Wars version the game will feature Anthony Daniels voicing C-3PO. Other characters from the franchise will also appear. The game’s real-life players will be translated into animated avatars, with Star Wars characters subbing in for key plays. Sony’s Beyond Sports provides the data visualization tech that powers the animated presentation.
The Star Wars altcast will run alongside additional alternate Super Bowl presentations on ESPN2, ESPNU and NFL Network. Disney will also bring Star Wars to the NFL some during the regular season: Starting Tuesday, SC+ — the streaming version of SportsCenter that runs on Disney+ — will feature Monday Night Football highlights “with a Star Wars visual theme,” according to a press release. Beginning with the Oct. 26 MNF game, SC+ will also have an animated Darth Vader interview a player in that week’s contest.
The “Funday Football” altcast will stream live in the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, Australia and New Zealand, Canada (on TSN+), the Netherlands, sub-Saharan Africa, Japan, Sweden, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. Other territories will carry it shortly after the game concludes.