Walt Disney Co. continues to take steps to augment ESPN Inc.'s inaugural Super Bowl coverage, adding a pair of alternate telecasts and lining up its top original show for the post-National Football League Inc. championship game time slot.
As expected, Pat McAfee will be adding a field cast coverage on ESPNU (US), while NFL Network (US) will gain its first Super Bowl live airing with a stats-oriented presentation. ESPN acquired NFL Network, along with linear rights to highlights channel NFL Red Zone and the league's fantasy rights, through a deal that gives the league a 10% stake in Disney's sports programmer
Crime-solving drama "High Potential" will air on ABC (US) and stream on Disney+ after post-game coverage on Feb. 14. The show, which returns for its third season early in 2027 with Tuesday night airings on ABC, finished the 2025-26 TV season with a 3.35 rating among adults 18 to 49 and placed third among total viewers, with 16.01 million watchers over 35 days of viewing on ABC, Hulu, Hulu on Disney+ and digital platforms, according to Disney.
The last time a drama aired following the NFL title tilt in 2024, Skydance Corp.'s CBS (US) launched its "Tracker" series, which averaged 18.4 million watchers.
In 2025, Fox Corp.'s FOX (US) followed its post-Super Bowl presentation with "The Floor," the reality-competition show hosted by Rob Lowe. NBCUniversal Media LLC followed NBC (US)'s coverage of Super Bowl 2026 by going right to the Winter Olympics from Milano-Cortina, Italy.
In August, Disney said it had sold out all of the ad inventory for Super 2027, the earliest a rights-holder reported that it had accounted for all of the commercials within the big game. Fifty-eight brands, including nine first-time Super Bowl advertisers, across 34 categories have locked up in-game positions, according to Disney Advertising.
The "Super Bowl LXI Field Pass with The Pat McAfee Show" and "Super Bowl LXI Playbook with Next Gen Stats" coverage join a MegaCast lineup that will see ESPN (US), ABC and the ESPN app all carry the game. The Manningcast, delivered by brothers and former NFL quarterbacks Eli and Peyton Manning, will run on ESPN2, while ESPN Deportes is also in the mix, as is TelevisaUnivision Inc.'s broadcast network, Univision, which is sublicensing the game.
Last week, Disney announced that streamer Disney+ will join the lineup, simul-streaming the Super Bowl coverage. Disney+ customers do not have to be ESPN subscribers to stream the NFL championship game.
S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan estimates that Disney+ counted 54.0 million US subscribers at the close of the second quarter ended June 30.
Disney and ESPN are taking aim at the record 127.7 million combined average viewership recorded in 2025, when Fox's networks and platforms, including free-ad-supported channel Tubi Inc., and NBCU's Telemundo (US) carried the game.
