The NFL season just got underway, but preparations for the 2027 Super Bowl began at ESPN as soon as the 2026 game ended this past February.
In what ESPN is calling “the year of the Super Bowl,” the TV network is gearing up to broadcast the most-watched big game for the first time in its nearly 50-year history. And right now, it’s exploring potential options for tapping into the intellectual property of its parent company, The Walt Disney Co., that could help draw in even more fans.
Could that mean something like an animated, real-time alternate broadcast featuring characters from the likes of Toy Story or The Simpsons? Jimmy Pitaro, chairman of ESPN, can’t say just yet. But one thing is for sure, the Super Bowl is one of the top priorities, not only for ESPN but for Disney more broadly, he said.
“Our goal is to have the highest rating of all time for this game,” Pitaro said, while speaking at the Fast Company Innovation Festival this week in New York. “And to get there, we need the power of The Walt Disney Co. behind us.”
As part of its mission to serve as “the front door of the starting point for sports fans,” ESPN has made moves to bring even more sports content to fans—be it with its direct-to-consumer service that launched in 2025 or by providing contextual relevance during a game, such as betting stats, Pitaro said. It’s also the reason why Disney+ subscribers now have access to “more and more sports content” even if they don’t subscribe to ESPN, he added.
“Sports is more and more everyday a priority—not just for ESPN, obviously, but for the entire Walt Disney company,” Pitaro said.
WHAT FANS CAN EXPECT
Fans can expect daily storytelling and special features in the nearly five months leading up to the Super Bowl, added Laura Rutledge, a Monday Night Football reporter and an ESPN host. And since ESPN acquired NFL Network as part of a bigger deal earlier this year, she said that’s helped the network to deliver more content—and more value—to fans.
Indeed, the fans are always top of mind, Rutledge said. ESPN constantly looks for ways to best serve fans of all 32 of the NFL franchises, including teams that don’t get so much national attention, while centering a lot of coverage around the fantasy football fan and being mindful that the way people watch sports has also changed, Rutledge said.
“The fact, too, that you can just be on your phone, load up the games,” she added. “We don’t change the way we broadcast games because of this, but it does make us, I think, really excited that we can fit into your life as a sports fan instead of vice versa.”