The Force is taking over the Super Bowl. Star Wars Funday Football will transform Super Bowl LXI into a live, animated alternate broadcast, putting the NFL’s biggest game inside the Star Wars galaxy on February 14, 2027.
ESPN, Lucasfilm, Disney, and the NFL are joining forces for the unusual presentation, which will stream on Disney+ and the ESPN App while also airing on Disney Channel and Disney XD. The special will recreate every play as it happens, replacing real players with animated avatars and bringing Star Wars characters into key moments. Expect familiar visual details and Easter eggs to appear throughout the game, although the production’s full cast of characters and settings has not yet been revealed.
C-3PO is already confirmed as one of the broadcast’s major participants, with Anthony Daniels returning to provide new dialogue for the protocol droid. Daniels has played the character since the original 1977 film, making his involvement more than a simple digital cameo. A teaser places C-3PO and R2-D2 on a desert planet as they make their way toward a far-away stadium, giving the broadcast its first taste of an in-universe framing device.
The animation will be generated with technology from Sony’s Beyond Sports, which combines NFL Next Gen Stats player-tracking data with Sony Hawk-Eye Innovations’ optical tracking. That system allows live athletic movement to be translated into animation quickly enough for the alternate game to keep pace with the conventional broadcast. The standard presentation will feature Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Lisa Salters, and Laura Rutledge from SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, while the Star Wars version will run alongside it.
This is the latest and biggest expansion of Disney and ESPN’s Funday Football concept. Earlier animated NFL presentations have used recognizable entertainment properties to make football accessible to younger viewers, but Star Wars Funday Football is being billed as the first animated alternate presentation built around a Super Bowl matchup. The event will also reach an international audience, with live availability planned across numerous markets and on-demand access in additional territories through Disney+ shortly after the game.
The timing adds another layer to the crossover. The broadcast arrives during Lucasfilm’s 50th-anniversary celebration of Star Wars, only days before the original film’s restored 1977 version returns to theaters on February 19, including select IMAX 70mm screenings. More details about the animated game—including its visual worlds, additional characters, and presentation style—are expected closer to kickoff.
Star Wars will also appear around the NFL before the Super Bowl. Beginning October 26, Darth Vader is scheduled to participate in SportsCenter+ coverage by interviewing a player involved in each Monday Night Football game. That makes the Super Bowl special feel less like a one-off stunt and more like part of a broader effort to merge Lucasfilm’s characters with ESPN’s live sports programming.
