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

MANHATTAN — During Disney’s upfront presentation on 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 on stage 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 Troy Aikman and Buck away from Fox in 2022, ESPN will offer viewers one of the most experienced Big Game broadcast teams ever.

Between them, Aikman and Buck 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 co-starring 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 MVP’s on-stage 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 on stage to tout their first-ever Super Bowl “ManningCast” on ESPN2.

As with English-language rights holders, the NFL requires the Big Game 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, the worldwide leader 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 on Tuesday. You can watch Goodell crash McAfee’s show here.

Look for Disney to also produce an animated “Kids-Cast,” 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 year-long 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.

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