The league’s own cable channel will show live action from a Super Bowl for the first time. Under a plan Disney’s sports network announced with the league on Sunday, Oct. 11, the league-branded channel will carry a Super Bowl LXI Playbook edition, an analytics-heavy alternate telecast built on the league’s player-tracking data, of the Feb. 14, 2027 game at SoFi Stadium. On Super Bowl Sundays in the past, that channel ran a static stats screen while the game aired somewhere else.
The second addition puts Pat McAfee’s crew on ESPNU, a channel that has never carried live NFL game action, with Super Bowl LXI Field Pass with The Pat McAfee Show. Both join the Peyton and Eli Manning alternate cast already booked for ESPN2.
Eight ways to watch one game
The main telecast stays with Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Lisa Salters and Laura Rutledge on ABC and Disney’s flagship sports channel, simulcast on Disney+. Here is the full lineup:
- Main telecast: ABC, Disney’s flagship sports channel and Disney+
- ManningCast: ESPN2
- Field Pass with The Pat McAfee Show: ESPNU
- Playbook (player-tracking stats cast): the league-owned channel (commentators to be announced later)
- Spanish: Disney’s Spanish-language sports channel and Disney+, plus a separate presentation on Univision
- Streaming: Disney’s sports streaming app alongside Disney+
Sports Media Watch’s Jon Lewis counts that as eight linear and streaming platforms. Super Bowl LX had three: NBC, Peacock and Telemundo. The Univision feed is there because league rules require a Spanish-language broadcast on over-the-air television for any Super Bowl.
For the game’s basic details and the existing Disney plan, see our Super Bowl LXI how-to-watch guide.
A trial run on Monday nights first
Neither alternate cast will make its debut on Super Bowl Sunday. The league-owned channel started its MNF Playbook stats cast in Week 5 with Bills-Rams on Oct. 12, with Field Yates, Chase Daniel, Louis Riddick and Seth Walder on the call. A rotating group handles later editions. The Playbook format first aired on ESPN2 in Week 16 last season and was then limited to the streaming app during the network’s playoff games.
The remaining Playbook dates on the league channel line up with the weeks when Monday Night Football is on ABC:
- Week 6, Mon. Oct. 19: Commanders at 49ers
- Week 7, Mon. Oct. 26: Cowboys at Eagles
- Week 9, Mon. Nov. 9: Bills at Vikings
- Week 13, Mon. Dec. 7
- Week 15, Mon. Dec. 21
- Week 16 or Week 17 (to be announced)
- Week 18 Saturday doubleheader, Jan. 9
- Super Bowl LXI, Feb. 14
Field Pass also starts in Week 6 on ESPN2, in a week when the Manning brothers are off, and it is set for five Monday editions plus the Week 18 Saturday night game. McAfee stays at field level with Dan Orlovsky and Darius Butler, and Connor Campbell, Ty Schmit and Tone Digs work from an in-stadium suite. That means next Monday’s Commanders-49ers game will run on four channels at once. Kickoff is 8:15 p.m. ET, which is 3:15 a.m. Tuesday in Cairo.
Why the league channel is suddenly carrying games
This follows the deal that closed in February, which sent the league’s cable channel and other league media assets to Disney in exchange for a 10 percent stake in its sports network for the league. Since then, the channel has added live road shows from Monday Night Football sites and simulcasts of Disney studio programming. Lewis counts 17 live games for the channel this season once its own seven-game package of exclusive windows, the Monday Playbook editions and the Super Bowl are added together. That is the most in the channel’s history. Its previous high was 13, back when it was the sole home of Thursday Night Football.
For the league, the logic matches what it has done with Monday nights. Instead of moving viewers off the main feed, the alternate casts aim at audiences that want more numbers, more jokes or more Mannings. All of them count toward one total audience that the league and Disney will measure once Super Bowl LXI is played in Inglewood.
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