Disney is taking The Big Game to a galaxy far, far away. Star Wars Funday Football will give Super Bowl LXI an animated alternate broadcast on February 14, 2027, recreating the actual game in real time with NFL players transformed into animated avatars inside the Star Wars universe.
Now, maybe I’m old? But that sounds absolutely crazy. What they’re telling me is that if I don’t really care that much about the Super Bowl, I can change the channel, and watch the exact game as it happens, only with C-3PO and a bunch of other iconic Star Wars characters playing the game in an ‘alterna-cast’ mode that matches the on-field plays as they happen?
That’s pretty cool, right? I’m not sure how much milage anyone else at the Super Bowl party will have with that. I imagine my drunk aunt and pistol-packing uncle will tolerate that for about 6 minutes before screaming to change the channel back to the real game. Wine will definitely be spilled.
Still sounds pretty awesome, though.
ESPN, Lucasfilm, Disney and the NFL announced the unusual crossover on Monday. The broadcast will stream on Disney+ and the ESPN App, while also airing on Disney Channel and Disney XD. It will run alongside the traditional Super Bowl coverage, giving viewers a very different way to watch the NFL championship.
C-3PO will be a major part of the presentation, with Anthony Daniels returning to voice the protocol droid he first played in the original 1977 Star Wars. Other characters from across the franchise will also appear during the game, with some stepping into the action at key moments. Disney says the broadcast will include additional Easter eggs for viewers to spot.
The technology behind Star Wars Funday Football is what makes the concept more than a themed cartoon. The production will use real-time NFL player-tracking data from Next Gen Stats, along with optical tracking technology from Sony’s Hawk-Eye Innovations, to recreate the action as it happens. Sony’s Beyond Sports will provide the data-visualization technology that turns the live game into animation.
That means the animated players will follow the actual plays unfolding on the field, rather than acting out a separate scripted football game. Viewers will be able to follow the same championship matchup as the regular broadcast, only presented through a Star Wars setting. So who gets to wear which uniforms? Guess we’ll find out on the day.
The announcement continues a run of animated NFL alternate broadcasts from ESPN, Disney and the league. Toy Story Funday Football debuted in 2023 with the Falcons facing the Jaguars, followed by The Simpsons Funday Football in 2024. Last year, Monsters Funday Football brought the action to the world of Monsters, Inc. The Toy Story edition won three Sports Emmy Awards. So I guess they’ve been doing it for a couple years, but I’m just learning about it now, cause I’m the single nerd in the family who’d actually sacrifice game time to check it out.
This will be the first animated alternate presentation of a Super Bowl, making the upcoming broadcast a bigger test of the format than its previous regular-season games. ESPN is also preparing its first-ever Super Bowl production for the traditional telecast, which will air on ESPN and ABC, with the main English-language broadcast available on Disney+ in the United States.
Super Bowl LXI will take place at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, on February 14, 2027. The game falls on Valentine’s Day, with the Star Wars broadcast offering fans an alternative to the usual play-by-play presentation. The game’s teams and the full lineup of Star Wars characters appearing in the animated version have not yet been announced.
There is a fitting bit of timing for the franchise, too. Star Wars will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2027, and just five days after the Super Bowl, a newly restored version of the original 1977 film is scheduled to return to theaters on February 19. Now that? I’ll definitely be hitting up at my local Regal.
Disney and ESPN say they will reveal more details about the broadcast, including its animated setting and commentators, closer to game day. For now, football fans can look forward to seeing how the galaxy far, far away handles the biggest game in American sports.
